"Caucasus.Realities": during a special operation in Tbilisi, the organizer of the terrorist attack at Istanbul airport, Akhmed Chataev, was killed

During a special operation in Tbilisi on November 21-22 , Akhmed Chataev, a native of Chechnya, known as an accomplice of Doku Umarov, a recruiter of terrorists from the Islamic State and the alleged organizer of a terrorist attack at the Istanbul airport, could have been killed.

The death of Chataev on the evening of November 22 was announced by a retired Georgian soldier David Makishvili, who participated in the hostilities in Ukraine; he referred to a Chechen acquaintance who also participated in the conflict in the Donbass.

On November 23, a source close to the Chataev family confirmed the information about his death to the Kavkaz.Realii website.

At the same time, the head of the Georgian Caucasus Integration Foundation, Umar Idigov, who was called to the site of the special operation as a negotiator, rejected suggestions that Chataev was one of the terrorists, since he "does not have one leg, no arm." “People would instantly notice him and identify him,” he is quoted by the Caucasian Knot.

On November 23, the Georgian police refused to answer the question whether Chataev was among the killed, citing the fact that the examination had not yet been completed.

• Akhmed Chataev is a native of Chechnya, a participant in the hostilities in the republic on the side of the militants. In the early 2000s, he left for Europe and received refugee status in Austria; was called the representative of the terrorist leader Doku Umarov in Western Europe. Russia has been looking for him since 2003.
• Chataev was detained several times in Europe and Ukraine, and for some time he lived in Georgia. In 2012, he was detained during a special operation in the Lopota Gorge, where there were clashes between Georgian security forces and militants. In the end, he was acquitted.
• In 2015, according to reports, Chataev left for Syria and joined the terrorists from the Islamic State. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee of Russia called him the main ISIS recruiter. The US also included him in the list of terrorists.
• Turkish media called Akhmed Chataev a suspect in organizing a terrorist attack at the Istanbul airport in June 2016. Then 43 people died and more than 200 people were injured.