Word: pankisi
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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GEORGIA Gorge Aggression Two Russian combat planes crossed into Georgian airspace and bombed the mountains on the border with Chechnya, Georgian officials claimed. Film from the Pankisi Gorge, a valley in the northern Caucasus Mountains, showed large craters on a hillside and dead sheep, said to have been killed in the strike. Russia denied the allegations but accused Georgia of sheltering Chechen terrorists. The U.S., worried that Pankisi could harbor al-Qaeda activists, has sent soldiers to Georgia to train antiterrorism forces...
GEORGIA Strategic Presence The first contingent of U.S. special forces arrived to assist local troops in counterterrorism operations. Some 200 military instructors will be involved in the mission to train and equip Georgian soldiers to tackle Muslim extremists in areas like the remote Pankisi Gorge. The Pentagon has said the $64 million program will last six months, but others say the troops will stay on to protect U.S. regional interests...
...batch of Georgian troops should have finished U.S. training. If there is an attack, Arshba adds, "I do not exclude the participation of U.S. advisers." Washington says its advisers will prepare Georgian counter-terrorist troops to root out a group of al-Qaeda operatives supposedly sheltering in the remote Pankisi valley, but many diplomats in Georgia wonder if the terrorists actually exist. The U.S. insists that its advisers will not be involved in any military actions. Arshba, a veteran of Afghanistan who trained at a military academy alongside some of the Georgian commanders he is preparing to fight, shrugged...
Just beyond the last checkpoint, where Georgian Interior Forces yet again register visitors, a black BMW waited on the beat-up road. It belonged to Aslanbek, a self-described Chechen refugee and representative of the inhabitants of Duisi, the largest village in the Pankisi Gorge, a remote Georgian valley that hit the headlines in February after the U.S. announced it was an al-Qaeda base area. "Welcome to Duisi," he said, asking two journalists the purpose of their visit. To discover why Washington was so worried about the Gorge, we answered delicately. "No one here will answer that question...
Chechen rebels, a few with al-Qaeda links, have long been hiding in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a lawless valley full of refugees. Russia asked Georgia for permission to send in troops. Now a dozen al-Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan have snuck into the area. Georgia has turned to the U.S. instead; American military advisers will arrive this month to train elite battalions...