Four Georgian citizens arrested for joining ISIS

Four Georgian citizens have been arrested for joining the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and supporting terrorism.

A special operation by officers of Georgia’s Counter Intelligence Centre ended with one man being detained in Kakheti, eastern Georgia, and three others in Tbilisi as they attempted to leave the country for Syria. The arrests happened on Monday.

The man arrested in Kakheti was Aiup Borchashvili, 36, father of nine who lived in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge. Bochorishvili was arrested and charged with being an ISIS representative in Georgia and for recruiting Georgian youth to join ISIS and fight in Syria.

Meanwhile the identities of the other three, aged 18-24, were not revealed by the country’s Interior Ministry but it was revealed they had been recruited by Bochorishvili and were about to leave Georgia to join ISIS.

Police detained one of the younger men in Tbilisi shortly after he purchased an airline ticket to Turkey, where he allegedly intended to cross the Syrian border with the assistance and organisation of Borchashvili.

The other two were detained at Tbilisi International Airport during passport control procedures. The pair were heading in the direction of Turkey. Their trip was also organised by Borchashvili.

"The mentioned persons planned to get involved in the military actions in Syria and join "Islamic State” troops,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The statement also read that Bochorishvili had earlier recruited two minors from Pankisi Gorge using social media, websites and religious literature and had sent the two young people to Istanbul, Turkey on April 2. In Turkey they were met by Borchashvili’s allies and with their help the two travelled to Syria and joined the ISIS troops.

It was also believed that Borchashvili and his allies had an ideological influence over a number of Georgian citizens, who became followers of Wahhabism, a radical form of Islam.

Reportedly, dozens of male and female youth have recently left Pankisi to join ISIS.

The Pankisi Gorge is a valley mainly inhabited by the Kist sub-ethnos in northeastern Georgia that borders the Chechnyan republic of the Russian Federation. The area once sheltered rebels from the Russians during the Chechen wars.

The Pankisi Gorge remained to be one of the most challenging areas of Georgia. In 2003 it was a place of major military engagement where a special operation involving police and US-trained special forces were required to repress the threats of Al-Qaeda.

The Gorge is also home to Tarkhan Batirashvili - also known as Abu Omar al-Shishani, a military leader of ISIS.