Russia accuses Georgian intelligence of aiding Islamists

A.V. Bortnikov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has accused Georgian intelligence and security services of aiding anti-Moscow militants in Russia’s southern republics. Speaking before Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee on Tuesday, Alexander V. Bortnikov said that the FSB’s counterintelligence department had seized a number of “audio reports” from Islamist militants active in the Russian Caucasus, which allegedly show that a number of “al-Qaeda emissaries” mediate between militants in Russia and “Georgian special services”. The latter, said Bortnikov, train militants from Chechnya, Dagestan and North Caucasus, and supply them with funds, weapons and explosives. But the Washington-based Radio Free Europe has quoted David Bakradze, the speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, as denying Bortnikov’s “groundless” allegations. Moscow and Tbilisi have been engaged in an intelligence tug of war, involving frequent espionage-related arrests, ever since the 2008 South Ossetia war. Last week, intelNews reported that Paul Joyal, former director of security for the US Senate Intelligence Committee, and a paid Washington lobbyist for the government of Georgia, claimed that agents of the Russian government tried to kill him two years ago outside his Washington home.

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