Pankisi or the Pankisi Gorge is a valley region in Georgia, in the upper reaches of River Alazani just south of Georgia’s historic region of Tusheti between Mt Borbalo and the ruined 17th-century fortress of Bakhtrioni. Administratively, it is included in the Akhmeta municipality of the Kakheti region. An ethnic group called Kists of Chechen roots form the majority (75%) in the area.
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev, also known by his kunya "Abu Idris", was a Chechen guerilla leader who served as a senior military commander in the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He held the rank of brigadier general in the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, and was posthumously declared generalissimo. As a military commander in the separatist armed forces of Chechnya, one of his most notable battles was the separatist recapture of Grozny in 1996, which he personally planned and commanded together with Aslan Maskhadov. He also masterminded several of the worst terrorist attacks that occurred in Russia.
Samir Saleh Abdullah al-Suwailim, commonly known as Ibn al-Khattab or Emir Khattab, was a Saudi Arabian pan-Islamist commander. Though he fought in many conflicts, he is best known for his involvement in the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War, which he participated in after moving to Chechnya at the invitation of the Akhmadov brothers.
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a Salafi jihadist militant group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999, and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), the group became a decentralized network with foreign fighters with a considerable Iraqi membership.
The Georgian Civil War lasted from 1991 to 1993 in the South Caucasian country of Georgia. It consisted of inter-ethnic and international conflicts in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as the violent military coup d'état against the first democratically-elected President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and his subsequent uprising in an attempt to regain power.
The Georgian–Ossetian conflict is an ethno-political conflict over Georgia's former autonomous region of South Ossetia, which evolved in 1989 and developed into a war. Despite a declared ceasefire and numerous peace efforts, the conflict remained unresolved. In August 2008, military tensions and clashes between Georgia and South Ossetian separatists erupted into the Russo-Georgian War. Since then, South Ossetia has been under a de-facto Russian control.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, born Abdel Moneim Ezz El-Din Ali Al-Badawi, was an Egyptian militant leader who was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during the Iraqi insurgency, following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006. He was war minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2006 to 2010 and prime minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2009 to 2010. He was killed during a raid on his safehouse on 18 April 2010.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, born Hamid Dawud Mohamed Khalil al-Zawi was an Iraqi militant who was the Emir of the Islamic militant umbrella organization Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), and its successor, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which fought against the U.S.-led Coalition forces during the Iraqi insurgency.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, was a Jordanian militant jihadist who ran a training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war". He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".
Abu al-Walid was a Saudi Arabian of the Ghamd tribe who fought as a "mujahid" volunteer in Central Asia, the Balkans, and the North Caucasus. He was killed in April 2004 in Chechnya by the Russian federal forces.
Abu Hafs al-Urduni, also transliterated as Abu Hafs al-Urdani, was a Jordanian Mujahid Emir (commander) fighting in Chechnya. He was killed in Dagestan on November 26, 2006.
Khaled Youssef Mohammed al-Emirat, more commonly known as Muhannad, and also known as Abu Anas, was a Mujahid Emir (commander) fighting in Chechnya. Following the death of Abu Hafs al-Urduni on 26 November 2006, he was named leader of the battalion of foreign fighters once commanded by the notorious Saudi-born Ibn al-Khattab.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by the French acronym GSPC, was an Algerian islamist terrorist faction in the Algerian Civil War founded in 1998 by Hassan Hattab, a former regional commander of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). After Hattab was ousted from the organization in 2003, the group officially pledged support for al-Qaeda, and in January 2007, the group officially changed its name to the "Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM).
This article describes the background of the Russo-Georgian War.
Saleh Al-Qaraawi is a Saudi militant Jihadist.
Abdulla Kurd, , was a Kurdish militant who was a commander of the Mujahideen in Chechnya. Kurd was the top deputy to Saudi-born field commander Muhannad. Following Muhannad's capture and assassination near the village of Serzhen-Yurt on 21 April 2011, according to the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee, Kurd assumed Muhannad's position. Kurd was killed by Russian security forces in the Cheberloevsky area of Chechnya on 3 May 2011.
The Lopota incident, known in Georgia as the special operation against an illegal armed group in Lopota, was an armed incident where the Georgian special forces engaged an unknown paramilitary group of about 17 unknown individuals which had allegedly taken several people hostage in the remote Caucasus gorge of Lopota near the border between Georgia and the Russia's Republic of Dagestan.
Anti-Chechen sentiment, Chechenophobia, anti-Chechenism, or Nokhchophobia, refers to fear, dislike, hostility, hatred, discrimination, and racism towards ethnic Chechens, the Chechen language, or the Chechen culture in general. Anti-Chechen sentiment has been historically strong in Russia, and to some degree has spread to other countries in the former Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan, to Europe, the Middle East, and to the United States. For decades, the main causes of hatred against Chechens have been largely due to the created narrative which depicts a violent mentality of Chechens, the association of Chechens with Islamic extremism, and Russian imperialist propaganda targeted at Chechens.
Konstantin Kochiev is an Ossetian diplomat and politician from the partially recognized Caucasian Republic of South Ossetia, which most of the United Nations recognizes as part of Georgia, occupied by Russia.
Saïd Arif, also known by his nom de guerreOmar Gharib was an al-Qaeda operative, terrorist and former Algerian People's National Army officer who was formally designated as a threat to United States security in August 2014 before his death less than a year later, in May 2015.
Georgia 
Russia 
United States [1] 
Arab Mujahideen [1] 
Chechen fighters