Russia Renews Accusations that Georgia Harbors Chechen Militants

Chief of the Regional Operative Staff (ROSh) for coordination of anti-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Arkady Edelev said that militants and mercenaries fighting in Chechnya against the Russian Federal Forces still use Georgia as a transit route for infiltrating the rebel republic.

Edelev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying on October 12 that ?many militants? left Chechnya over the past year for ?rehabilitation.?

?Dozens of them stayed in the Pankisi gorge [Georgia?s mountainous region near the Russian border] and others in Jordan and Turkey and some of them even in Iraq,? Russian official said.

Russian officials have periodically accused Georgia of harboring Chechen militants in Pankisi gorge over recent years. Currently a few thousand Chechen refugees live in the Pankisi gorge.

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