2017 Isani flat siege
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Georgian victory
- Siege lifted
| 2017 Isani flat siege | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Islamic State insurgency in the North Caucasus | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Islamic State | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Giorgi Gakharia Vakhtang Gomelauri |
Akhmed Chatayev † Shoaip Borziev (WIA) Aslambek Soltakhmedov † Ibrahim Adashev † | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| the "Chatayev group" | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Undisclosed | 4 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
 1 killed, 4 wounded |
3 killed, 1 arrested | ||||||
The 2017 Isani flat siege was a confrontation between the Georgian police and security forces and an armed group of four Chechen men, including the former Islamic State officer Akhmed Chatayev, in and around a flat on Gabriel Salosi Street in the Isani district of Tbilisi, from 21 to 22 November 2017.[1] Three suspected militants, including Chatayev, and one counter-terrorist officer were killed and four law enforcement personnel were wounded as a result of the about 20-hour confrontation. One member of the group was arrested. According to the Georgian security officials, the group planned to carry out terror attacks against foreign diplomatic missions in Georgia and Turkey.
A special operation, involving the Georgian police and State Security Service, to disarm an armed group entrenched in a rented flat in a block in Gabriel Salos Street in Tbilisi's Isani district began late on 21 November and escalated to a gunfight and explosions overnight after hours of futile attempts by the authorities to convince the men to surrender. The fighting started when the suspects answered the authorities demands with heavy gunfire and tossing hand grenades at the security forces, wounding 5 officers, one of which named Ivane Golashvili died later in hospital.[2] In response the police moved in with armoured cars and subsequently stormed the apartment.[3] The operation was over by 17:00 local time on 22 November. In what the Georgian officials declared to be an anti-terrorist operation, three suspected militants, all "foreign nationals", were killed and one, later confirmed to be a Russian citizen,[4] arrested. Two of the suspects were shot by police when trying to escape. No civilian casualties occurred.[5] One of the killed militants was later identified to have been Akhmed Chatayev, who reportedly blew himself up during the shootout.[6]
Investigation
The government remained largely tightlipped after the operation and were criticized by the opposition for the lack of transparency. Chatayev, a former fighter in Chechnya, had been arrested in Georgia during the Lopota incident in 2012, but then released on bail and cleared of charges of possessing explosives on account of "insufficient evidence". He then emerged as a commander for the Islamic State in Syria and was designated by the United Nations as a "foreign terrorist". According to the head of the Georgian State Security Service Vakhtang Gomelauri, Chatayev and his associates made their way to Georgia in 2017, bypassing a border checkpoint, but declined to specify the country from which they crossed into Georgia. Gomelauri stated a weapons cache from which the group was supplied was found in the woods and that there were two versions regarding the group's planned activities in Georgia, without going into further details.[7] The United States counter-terrorism experts were involved in the investigation.[8]