Bin Laden Not in Georgia: Interior Ministry

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, February 17, 2002

Bin Laden Not in Georgia: Interior Ministry

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The Georgian Interior Ministry and the State Security Ministry on Saturday officially denied some Russian media reports claiming that No. 1 terrorist Osama bin Laden is in the republic's Pankisi Gorge.

According to Tass, a high-ranking Interior Ministry official told journalists in Tbilisi that the Georgian law enforcement agencies are carrying out operations in the Pankisi Gorge and have

found no evidence indicating bin Laden's hiding there.

Interior Ministry spokesman Kakha Sikharulidze said he was " surprised and bewildered" by reports about the possibility of Laden's presence in the Pankisi Gorge.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili denied Georgian and foreign media reports that the law enforcement agencies are preparing a "military preventive operation" in the Pankisi Gorge.

"No military operation will be carried out in the gorge because there is no need for that," he said.

But he stressed that the authorities are taking appropriate " operational measures against concrete criminal elements" in the Akhmeta district in the northern part of the gorge.

Speaking of the current situation in the Pankisi Gorge, Narchemashvili described it as "relatively stable."

The Interior Ministry and the State Security Ministry have been carrying out operational and preventive operations there since mid-January in order to strengthen law and order there. Roadblocks manned by policemen and interior troops have been moved from the entrance deeper into the gorge, he said.

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