Mastermind of Turkey Airport Attack Said to Be Among 3 Suspects Killed in Tbilisi Siege

One of the men killed by special forces in the shootout on November 22 in the Isani district of Tbilisi is thought to have orchestrated the Ataturk Airport bombings last year in Istanbul, which claimed 45 lives.

The Head of the State Security Agency (SUS), Vakhtang Gomelauri, told reporters on Sunday that they are considering the possibility that the ISIS member Akhmed Chatayev is among the dead. “There is suspicion that Akhmed Chatayev is among the deceased,” Gomelauri said. He added however, that this needs to be confirmed by forensics and that “our strategic partner, the American side” is a part of the inquest.

This SUS statement has caused some confusion, because Akhmed Chatayev was a double amputee, having lost his right arm and left foot on separate occasions. Reports tried asking if a man of such a description was among the dead, but so far SUS has refused to answer any questions from journalists.

Akhmed Chatayev, born 1980 in Chechnya, Russian federation, lost his arm in the second Chechen war. After this, he fled to Austria, who granted him asylum in 2003. He was later detained in Ukraine, facing deportation back to Russia, but the European Court of Human Rights managed to convince Kyiv not to hand him over to the Russian authorities. Instead, he was then sent to Georgia. He is said to have stayed for a while in Pankisi Gorge, 160 km northeast of Tbilisi.

In 2012, during the Lopota conflict, on the border between Georgia and Dagestan, one of the constituent republics of the Russian Federation, he injured his foot and consequently had to have it amputated.

He was put on trial for his involvement, but was released in 2013 due to lack of evidence. After this, he left Georgia to join ISIS. In 2015, Akhmed Chatayev was marked as a foreign terrorist by the UN Security Council and the US. “Chatayev is designated for acting for or on behalf of ISIL. As of mid-2015, Chatayev was a member of ISIL and was part of a group of militants that were planning attacks against the U.S. and Turkish facilities. Text accompanying a video posted online in February 2015 […] indicates that Chatayev is the commander of the Yarmouk Battalion, a Chechen faction of ISIL,” reads the US Department of Treasury’s statement.

On 28 June 2016, forty-five people were killed, in addition to the three attackers, and more than 230 people were injured by gunmen with automatic weapons and explosive belts in the attack at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.

Tom Day