Pankisi () or the Pankisi Gorge (, Pankisis Kheoba) is a valley region in Georgia, in the upper reaches of River Alazani. It lies just south of Georgia's historic region of Tusheti between Mt Borbalo and the ruined 17th-century fortress of Bakhtrioni.

Administratively, Pankisi is included in the Akhmeta municipality of the Kakheti region. The area is about two and half miles wide and eight miles long.

From November 2000 until 2002, the valley played host to an armed formation led by the Chechen commander Ruslan Gelayev, who had fled the Second Chechen War. After the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, both Russian and American political figures made public allegations, which were subsequently either disproved or uncorroborated, that senior Al-Qaeda leaders were present in the Gorge, and had acquired the nerve agent ricin. The Gorge has occasionally been mentioned in subsequent reports linking it to Salafi-jihadist activity. The Kists are Vainakhs, usually of Chechen roots, who have moved to the Pankisi area since the 19th Century. Kist culture combines Vainakh traditions with some influences from surrounding eastern Georgia. He described them as intelligent, and as "skilled warriors."

Vakhushti described Pankisi itself as forested, with plentiful fruit trees, and vineyards that produced good wine. He added that the harvests were good, and the forests rich in game. Fish were also numerous, he wrote, especially "mountain trout", and there were many cattle, and many pigs, but few sheep.

Georgia's 1989 census found that the Pankisi Gorge's population was 43% Kist, 29% Georgian, and 28% Ossetian. By 2019, Kists were reported to be a majority of Pankisi's roughly-5,000 inhabitants.

thumb|right|The flags of the [[Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and Georgia flying side-by-side in the Pankisi Gorge]]

The Pankisi Gorge crisis was a 2002 geopolitical dispute that arose as a direct result of the Second Chechen War, and which was shaped by the U.S. Global War on Terror and pre-existing tensions between Russia and Georgia. By 2002, Ruslan Gelayev, a Chechen commander was reported to have gathered hundreds of armed men there.

Russia wanted Georgia to act against Gelayev's band, but Georgia was in dispute with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and declined to do so. On the contrary, Gelayev's force allegedly fought on behalf of Georgia in Abkhazia in 2001.

Powell showed a slide that depicted a purported Al-Qaeda network under the command of al-Zarqawi, including a bearded man named Abu 'Atiya located in Pankisi, Georgia. Abu 'Atiya was reportedly arrested in Azerbaijan on 12 August 2003, and deported to Jordan.

In 2008, the valley was reported to be peaceful despite the nearby Russo-Georgian war, and substantial numbers of refugees from Chechnya remained living there

The former senior Islamic State leader Tarkan Batirashvili, otherwise known as "Omar the Chechen," grew up in Pankisi, which was still home to some of his family as of 2014. In 2014, Batirashvilii reportedly threatened to return to the area to lead a Muslim attack on Russian Chechnya. However, the threat never came into fruition, and Batirashvili was killed during a battle in the Iraqi town of Al-Shirqat in 2016.

Notable people

  • Zezva Gaprindauli, a leader of the 1659 Bakhtrioni uprising against the rule of Safavid Persia, fortified himself in the Pankisi fortress, but was later captured and executed.
  • Kakutsa Cholokashvili (1888–1930), commander of an anti-Soviet guerrilla movement, was born in the Pankisi village of Matani. He made his base of operations initially in Pankisi, and later, with the Khevsurs in Chechnya.
  • Daro Sulakauri (1985–present), Georgian photojournalist and documentary photographer known for her documentation of Chechen refugees living in the Pankisi Gorge.

Jihadists and North-Caucasian separatists

A number of transnational jihadists and North-Caucasian separatists - especially Chechens - were either born in, lived in, or passed through the Pankisi Gorge - among them Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. Several fought in the first or second Chechen wars, were implicated in the Pankisi Gorge crisis, or fought in the Syrian civil war.

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • Shorena Kurtsikidze and Vakhtang Chikovani, Georgia's Pankisi Gorge: An Ethnographic Survey, Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Spring 2002.(http://escholarship.org/uc/item/64d7v9hj)
  • Rebecca Ruth Gould, “Secularism and Belief in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge," Journal of Islamic Studies 22.3(2011): 339–373.
  • Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program [https://web.archive.org/web/20070814182826/http://www.eucom.mil/english/GSSOP/index.asp]