U.S. to Help Fight Terror in Caucasus

The Pentagon has begun providing combat helicopters to the former Soviet republic of Georgia and will soon begin training several Georgian battalions to counter what defense officials believe is a growing terrorist threat in the country’s mountainous Pankisi Gorge region, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The move to train and equip the Georgian military opens a new front in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and is fueled by a belief shared by the United States and Georgia that Al Qaeda members and other Islamic extremists from the Russian republic of Chechnya have taken refuge in northern Georgia along the Chechen border.

The mission also represents an acknowledgment by the administration that Arab fighters connected to the Al Qaeda terrorist network have joined Chechen forces to battle the Russian army, an assertion long made by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

“We have a clear connection between Chechens and Al Qaeda. They clearly fall under the potential targets of the global war on terrorism,” said one defense official.

About 40 U.S. military personnel, including Special Forces, visited Georgia this month to assess Georgia’s security needs, according to Lt. Col. Ed Loomis, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Pentagon has already provided Georgia with 10 UH-1H Huey helicopters, six for operations and four for spare parts, Loomis said. A U.S. military trainer and six contractors are in Tblisi, the Georgian capital, helping Georgian personnel learn to operate the aircraft.