Lopota incident
The Lopota incident, known in Georgia as the special operation against an illegal armed group in Lopota (Georgian: შეიარაღებული დაჯგუფების დევნის ოპერაცია ლაფანყურში, romanized: sheiaraghebuli dajgupebis devnis op’eratsia lapanq’urshi), was an armed incident where the Georgian special forces engaged an unknown paramilitary group of about 17 unknown individuals (7 of them would later be identified after the incident, see the Identities section) which had allegedly taken several people hostage in the remote Caucasus gorge of Lopota near the border between Georgia and the Russia's Republic of Dagestan. At first, the gunmen were widely believed to be Russian Islamist insurgents from Dagestan, however several other theories suggest that they may be local Islamist militants from the Pankisi Gorge.