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Hard boyz still hiding in Pankisi, but situation much improved
Terrorists are still hiding in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, although the situation there has much improved in the past two or three years, Russian Ambassador Vladimir Chkhikvishvili told a news conference here on Monday."Russian and Georgian borderguards actively cooperate in border protection and the prevention of crossing by armed persons; secret services of the two countries maintain contacts. It helped improve the situation in the Pankisi Gorge, but, according to Russia's information, some terrorists are still staying there," Chkhikvishvili noted. When asked to specify, the envoy said "I have no concrete information about their numbers; part of terrorists is staying in the Gorge, but their numbers are much smaller than two or three years ago." Several armed groups from Chechnya, numbering 400 to 800 gunmen -- according to Tbilisi's reports - entered the Pankisi Gorge in 2001-2002. There were several international terrorists among them. As a result of operations by Georgian police in August and September 2002, an overwhelming majority of militants left Georgia: some returned to Chechnya and others laid down arms and went to third countries. Georgia detained several terrorists in 2002 and 2004 and extradited them to Russia. Representatives of Georgian law-enforcement agencies have alleged in the past few months that there are no terrorists or illegal armed groups in the Pankisi Gorge. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-01-24 |
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