Russia accuses Georgia of aiding al-Qaeda

Georgia is training and lending safe passage to al-Qaeda agents planning terrorist acts in the Russian Caucasus, the head of Russia's FSB secret service charged Tuesday.

Georgia immediately denied the claim as ‘preposterous’ and accused Moscow of stoking tensions.

‘Audio evidence seized from insurgents shows that, together with emissaries of al-Qaeda, they had contacts with representatives of the Georgian secret services,’ Alexander Bortnikov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.

Through these links, Georgia ‘participated in the training and transfer of terrorists to the territory of Chechnya,’ the FSB chief said.

Bortnikov also accused Tbilisi of supplying arms and funding terrorist activities in the neighbouring Caucasus region of Dagestan.

‘They perpetually undertake to deliver weapons, explosives and financing for subversive acts on high security sites in Dagestan — first and foremost on oil and gas pipelines,’ he said.

The head of Georgia's National Security Council, Eka Tkeshelashvili, said Russia was looking to create a pretext for actions against Georgia.

‘Of course this is yet another preposterous propaganda statement. The goal is to increase the temperature in an already tense situation,’ she told AFP.

‘In the case Russia decides to take aggressive actions against Georgia, it would use such accusations as a pretext. This is why the international community has to pay attention to these statements and point out that such statements are unacceptable.’

Tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi remain high after they fought a war in August 2008 over Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, which lies just south of the mountains from the turbulent Russian Caucasus.

Russia has faced mounting violence throughout its Northern Caucasus in recent months as militants wage a low-level insurgency against the Moscow-backed local authorities.

Russian officials have long charged that the insurgency is fuelled by foreign funding.
They have also said that Georgia, which shares a mountainous border with Chechnya, has harboured Chechen militants.