Anti-Terror Effort to Begin in Georgia

U.S. troops launched operations Tuesday in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to train local forces in anti-terrorism tactics--the latest step in the worldwide campaign against terrorism.

Eighteen Americans arrived overnight in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, the first of 150 special operations troops involved in the deployment. The rest are to arrive in the coming weeks, with training operations to get underway this month.

“We are initial representatives for the initial setup operation,” said one of the soldiers, Lt. Col. Doug Baker.

The $64-million training program is part of Washington’s worldwide campaign against terrorism and is similar to U.S. anti-terrorist training for forces in the Philippines.

U.S. officials fear that Muslim fighters holed up in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge--which borders the breakaway Russian region of Chechnya--could be linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network. The remote gorge is home to many people who have fled fighting in Chechnya, and Russian and Georgian officials say militants have mixed in among the refugees.

Georgia had requested help from the United States in battling the insurgents, angering many Russian officials, who feared another U.S. deployment into a former Soviet republic. U.S. troops are already stationed in former Soviet Central Asian nations near Afghanistan.

“It is not terrible for Russia or for our other neighbors,” said Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze, well known in Russia as foreign minister under ex-Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Some Russian military officials were also insulted that Georgia turned to the United States after rejecting offers of help from Russian forces.

But Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has reacted calmly to the U.S. project. On Tuesday, Valery Lastovsky, Russia’s military attache in Georgia, told the Interfax news agency that Moscow “feels neither apprehension nor jealousy” about the U.S. deployment.

The American troops will meet with Georgian Defense Ministry officials over the next week to set up the training program, the embassy said.