Pankisi Valley and Georgian State relationship Introduction:

Added to the increase of illegal networks in the valley (drugs, kidnapping ...), the international community quickly had evidence of the presence of Islamists affiliated with the international terrorist group Al-Qaeda, among the Chechen refugees present in the valley. [...] According to many international studies on departure reasons of foreign fighters, the main one is the economic situation in their country of origin added to a feeling to be abandoned 11 Salafism or the Al-Salafiyya Movement is a Sunni movement that advocates a rigorous practice of the foundations of Islam by Muslims, living or not in Muslim-majority countries by imitating the way of life of the Pr. [...] Government stigmatization Pankisi was perceived and described by medias as a “nest of extremists”, “filled with bandits”, “full of terrorist” since to the mass arrival of Chechen migrants in the late 1990s and as the place of origin of some notable figures in the ISIS terrorist organization14. [...] However, they set up a dialogue with the followers of traditional Islam, in other words the Sufis and the Council of Elders but not with the major part of the population, the so-called “Salafi15”. [...] Their parents have still not been granted the status of the victim’s next of kin and don’t have access to the most important evidence including the testimonies of the special operation policemen or the plan of the special operation.