{"id":27602,"date":"2016-02-06T22:42:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T20:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27602"},"modified":"2016-02-06T22:42:52","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T20:42:52","slug":"isis-militants-at-pankisi-gorge-pose-serious-threat-to-armenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27602","title":{"rendered":"ISIS Militants at Pankisi Gorge Pose Serious Threat to Armenia"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 192px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/asbarez.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Pankisi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"192\" height=\"123\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">MOSCOW (Rusarminfo) \u2014 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has  announced that the \u201cIslamic state\u201d terrorist organization has been using  the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia as a training base.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cWe have reports that IS militants are using this remote areas to  train there, rest and replenish their reserves,\u201d stressed Lavrov at a  press conference in Moscow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Indeed, there\u2019s a training center in the Pankisi Gorge, the number of  fighters is hardly constant, but there is a flow of fighters from  various terrorist groups from the Middle East, says Alexander Krylov,  President of the Scientific Society of Caucasian Studies.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cThe military situation in the Middle East is not in favor of the  \u2018Islamic state\u2019, and they are forced to emigrate, opening new fronts of  struggle in the regions of Caucasus and Central Asia. In this regard,  the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia may become a reference point for them, and  the result of their activity can become acts of terrorism and guerrilla  warfare,\u201d mentioned Krylov.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">According to him, Azerbaijan is the easiest way to penetrate the  Caucasus for militants. In Azerbaijan IS fighters have already developed  itineraries. If they decide to destabilize the situation in Azerbaijan,  they may succeed, since all possible means are at their disposal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cBut the greatest danger for Armenia is not the Azerbaijan direction  that can be occupied by terrorists, but the situation in the Georgian  region of Adjara, from where they can move to Javakheti, and then \u00a0to  Armenia. This is the worst development for Armenia, and we can  objectively say that this is a mounting danger for the Armenian National  Security,\u201d noted Krylov.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">According to the expert, in spite of such a threat, the South  Caucasus countries will not unite their efforts against militants, as  the region is reigned by the atmosphere of hostility.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Note: In June of 2015, the Georgian special services conducted in the  Pankisi Gorge a secret operation to arrest an armed group allegedly  involved in the IS. In particular, Islamist warlord Abu Omar al-Shishani  (Tarhan Batirashvili) was arrested.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/asbarez.com\/145647\/isis-militants-at-pankisi-gorge-pose-serious-threat-to-armenia\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/asbarez.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOSCOW (Rusarminfo) \u2014 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced that the \u201cIslamic state\u201d terrorist organization has been using the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia as a training base. \u201cWe have&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27603,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27602\/revisions\/27603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}