As attention shifts away from Afghanistan and its network of terrorist camps, the former Soviet state of Georgia finds itself increasingly the focus of an unwanted spotlight.

Georgian officials have dropped their earlier denial that Chechen guerrillas found shelter in an area called the Pankisi Gorge. The gorge is located in the north near the Georgian-Russian border and is home to the country's sizable ethnic Chechen population, as well as about 7,000 refugees from the war in Russia.

Moscow has long accused Tbilisi of allowing safe haven for the rebels, who are said to cross back and forth the two countries' border for operations inside Chechnya. The Kremlin's complaints are accompanied by a subtext that if the Georgians cannot get their house in order, then perhaps Russia should come do it for them.

Now comes the further assertion that among the foreign fighters, who have been long suspected to be among the Chechens, are some Afghan mujahideen who maintain tentative links to Osama bin Laden.

Philip Remler, US charge d'affaires in Tbilisi, said in an interview to a Georgian newspaper: "According to our information dozens of Afghan mujaheedin escaped from Afghanistan and came to the Caucasus."

"We know that some of them found shelter in the Pankisi gorge and have contacts with an Arab terrorist called Khattab, who is linked to Osama bin Laden," he said, as reported in Reuters and other agencies.

Valery Khaburdzania, Georgian state security minister, was reported as saying that Saudi and Jordanian nationals had been detained who were planning to set up a terrorist base in the gorge for attacks within Russia. He did not say if these included fighters from Afghanistan however.

The possible presence of Afghan mujahideen comes at a sensitive moment for Georgia, when President Eduard Shevardnadze's government is trying hard to show that it too is doing all it can to contribute to the war on terrorism.

Washington has often taken Georgia's side in the tiny Caucasus state's ongoing struggle with its former Soviet masters in Moscow. Now however some observers see the US accepting more of the Kremlin's arguments for fighting terrorism in the region. US officials however say that the Georgians are helping out.

But at the same time, the Pankisi Gorge, isolated and out of the reach of Tbilisi authorities, has become a centre for crime and kidnapping.

In an possible attempt to burnish its image, the Georgian government recently announced a much-heralded cleanup operation in the gorge. Many question whether the exercise can ultimately prove successful however, given the level of lawlessness that exists there.