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| Caucasus |
| Georgians trying to track down kidnapped businessman in Pankisi... |
| 2002-08-30 |
| Georgian troops on a mission to uproot militants from the rugged Pankisi Gorge are searching for an abducted British businessman and other kidnap victims believed to be held there, officials said Friday. Just knowing will probably make him feel better... Georgia launched the sweep in Pankisi after increasing pressure from Russia to take action against militants the Kremlin says have launched cross-border incursions into the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Georgia has turned down Russia's persistent demands to allow its troops to attack Chechen rebels who are holed up in the area, saying it would do the job itself — relying on training provided by the U.S. military experts deployed to Georgia. "Don't bother us with that stuff," they told the Russers. Then, so they don't have to learn how to speak Russian again, they seem to have gotten off the stick and taken a swing at it. Ain't international politix grand? Georgian Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili, whose troops marched into the gorge near the border of Chechnya on Sunday, said authorities have ``certain information'' that British banking expert Peter Shaw was in the gorge. However, he said ``but I can't say for certain.'' Meaning he could be in some other gorge... Shaw was abducted June 18 outside his home in Tbilisi. He had been preparing to leave this Caucasus Mountains nation, where he had worked for six years. Officials believe several other hostages are in the gorge, including a Georgian priest. A German businessman, Klaus Ditler Droig, disappeared in July, but his whereabouts are unknown. "Nope. We looked everywhere. Couldn't find him. Maybe he went home? Did you check his bedroom?" Pankisi residents have pushed the Georgian government to establish order in the gorge, which has seen kidnappings and other crime soar since Chechen rebels, along with thousands of Chechen refugees, settled in the area after the start of the second Russian war in the rebel republic in 1999. It's the old Camel's Nose Trick™, beloved of Islamists everywhere... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |