TBILISI -- Georgia has launched an investigation into an Islamic State video purportedly showing Georgian-speaking men fighting alongside IS militants in Syria.
The State Security Service announced the probe on November 23, a day after the twelve-and-a half-minute-long video circulated on the Internet. In the recording, four Georgian-speaking men, holding AK-47 rifles and an RPG grenade launcher, call on Muslims in Georgia to join the "Caliphate."
The men slammed Muslim clerics in Georgia's Muslim-populated region of Ajara and threatened to behead "infidels" in Georgia.
Georgian media identified the men as former residents of Ajara, which is located in the southwestern corner of Georgia on the Black Sea.
Georgian officials have said that dozens of Georgian nationals have joined Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq.
Among them is Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as Umar al-Shishani, a notorious battlefield commander in northern Syria.
