2023-04-22 08:28:38
This content was published on April 22, 2023 – 08:25
Tbilisi, Apr 22 (EFE).- The Georgian authorities today arrested Maljaz Paksashvili, commander of one of the groups of the terrorist organization Islamic State, in a special operation, according to a source in the State Security Service.
According to the entity, Paksashvili joined the Islamic State in 2013, following traveling to Syria, where he “participated until 2015 in military operations of this terrorist organization.”
During his stay in Syria, the terrorist “had close contacts with the military command of the Islamic State leadership and headed one of the” armed groups, the source added.
Paksashvili is accused of violating the Georgian Penal Code for his “participation in a foreign terrorist organization and support of terrorist activities”, for which he might be sentenced to between 10 and 17 years in prison.
The Pankisi Gorge, located in the eastern region of Kakhetia, where at the beginning of the century a conflict between the Georgian authorities and Islamist formations made up of Chechen militants and Al Qaeda took place, was the main quarry of the Islamic State in Georgia.
Along with the Chechen Islamist militants who fled Russia following the war in this country, regarding 150 Georgians fought.
It is estimated that several dozen Georgians have died in the war in Syria, the most famous of whom was Tarjan Batirashvili (Abu Omar al-Shishani), a native of this Georgian region.
Batirashvili, a career military man, participated in peacekeeping actions and fought once morest the 2008 Russian invasion of South Ossetia, before joining Islamic State. Considered one of the most dangerous terrorists of this organization, he died in 2016.EFE
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