US unveils black-list for terrorists
By Tea Mariamidze
Friday, September 26
The U.S. Department of State has published a black list of individuals and groups of terrorist suspects. Murad Margoshvili, a Chechen man is on the list.
‘’Murad Margoshvili is a famous Chechen leader fighting in Syria at present. He built a terrorist training base near the Turkish border in Syria,’’ the statement says, adding that the individual is training young people as terrorists near Turkish border.
The people on the black list are suspected of providing financial and material support to terrorists.
Georgia is ready to contribute to the anti-IS coalition created by the United States. However, it is not clear how Georgia will support the anti-terrorist activities.
Georgia’s PM Irakli Gharibashvili and U.S. President Barack Obama have not talked about training Syrian rebels.
‘’I would like to assure you that this issue has not been discussed as Georgia will not take part in the battle against ISIS in terms of military assistance,’’ Panjikidze said
Foreign Policy magazine published an article a couple of days ago, which reported that Georgia suggested to the United States a training centre in Georgia for Syrian rebels. The article cited Georgia’s Ambassador to the United States Archil Gegeshidze as the source of this.
However, Gegeshidze as well as Georgian officials stated that the information was incorrect. However, following Foreign Policy, New York Times also published the information based on a confidential American official that Georgia has made such an offer.
Sweden official Karl Bildt has stated that it is up to the Georgian government to decide how to take part in the anti-IS coalition. However, he admitted that Georgia is more at risk from terrorists, taking its location into account.
American analyst Lincoln Mitchell believes that opening such a centre in Georgia will create a serious terrorist threat to the country, and such a suggestion might also be unacceptable to the Georgian public following after being denied NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) again.
Analyst Mamuka Areshidze thinks that Georgia might have suggested this idea theoretically.
