TBILISI: Gunmen holed up in a residential building in Tbilisi on Wednesday killed a soldier during a counter-terrorist operation that rocked the Black Sea nation’s capital, doctors said. The special task force soldier, whose gunshot “wounds were fatal, died,” Tbilisi’s Ingorokva hospital said in a statement. Rustavi-2 television station reported that two more troops were hospitalised with gunshot wounds. Explosions and gunfire were heard earlier Wednesday in Tbilisi’s suburban Isani district as armed counter-terrorist units raided an apartment block, an AFP reporter witnessed. Several suspected members of a terrorist group “refused to surrender and opened fire from automatic rifles and threw hand grenades at counter-terrorist units,” Nino Giorgobiani, spokeswoman for Georgia’s security service, said in a statement. She added that one suspect had been detained and efforts were underway to detain several others. Citing preliminary information, she said the assailants were not Georgian nationals but “members of a terrorist group.” Published in Daily Times, November 23rd 2017.