Georgia arrests four for alleged links to Islamic State

Georgia arrests four for alleged links to Islamic State

Georgia arrests four for alleged links to Islamic State

Georgia has arrested four of its nationals
on suspicion of having links with the
Islamic State group, the ex-Soviet
country’s officials said Tuesday.
The four men were detained on Sunday
as police raided their houses in the
village of Nasakirali in western Georgia
after receiving information “identifying
several individuals who support Islamic
State ideology,” deputy chief of Georgia’s
State Security Agency, Levan Izoria, told
journalists.
He said “Islamic State flags, cylinder-
shaped explosive devices, hand grenades
and firearms” were found in their
houses.
“Investigative measures are ongoing to
substantiate that the arrested persons
have links with the Islamic State and
that they were providing assistance in
terrorist activities,” he added.
Some 50 Georgians –- including one of
the most feared commanders with the
Islamic State group in Syria, Omar Al-
Shishani, — are believed to be fighting
currently alongside the IS militants in
Syria and Iraq, the Caucasus nation’s
interior ministry had said.
They are mostly residents of the Pankisi
Gorge populated by an ethnic-Chechen
Muslim minority, the Kists, earning the
country’s north-eastern area a
reputation as a jihadist hotbed.
In June, a Salafi imam of Pankisi’s Jokolo
village was arrested on charges of
recruiting fighters for the IS.
Around 25,000 foreign fighters from
over 100 countries are involved in
armed conflicts worldwide, with the
highest numbers in Syria, Iraq and
increasingly Libya, according to a United
Nations report published this year.