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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: FaultLine who started this subject	2/26/2002 8:44:28 PM
From: Condor	Read Replies (3) of 281500

Elite U.S. Troops May Go to Republic of Georgia Feb 26 8:04pm ET By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is planning to send elite military forces to the former Soviet republic of Georgia to help train that country's troops, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, opening a third front in its war on terrorism. The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters a final decision had not been made but that Army special forces trainers were expected to go to Georgia soon in what would become a third front for the U.S. military in the war on terrorism after Afghanistan and the Philippines. The United States launched a war in Afghanistan in early October after the Sept 11. attacks and recently began sending nearly 200 Special forces trainers and hundreds of support troops to the Philippines to take part in bilateral exercises and to train Manila's armed forces in their battle against Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. The U.S. officials stressed that any troops sent to Georgia would not be involved in fighting Muslim guerrillas there, but would be in a support role similar to those in the Philippines. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman refused to comment on any possible movement of U.S. troops to Georgia, which was visited by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in December. But Whitman said a small military assessment team from America's European Command visited Georgia in January "to assess the feasibility of U.S. assistance to the Georgian government in the war on terrorism." He said the team had since returned from Georgia. In December, Rumsfeld held talks in Tbilisi with President Eduard Shevardnadze during a trip that also carried Rumsfeld to Afghanistan. Shevardnadze told Rumsfeld that democratic Georgia needed help in battling Muslim guerrillas and in modernizing its Soviet-style armed forces. Private defense analysts say that members of fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda guerrilla network may be in rugged Georgia. And Russia has accused Tbilisi of providing haven for Chechen guerrillas seeking to form a Muslim republic in Chechnya. The United States blames bin Laden for masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

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