A special operation, involving the Georgian police and State Security Service, to disarm an armed group entrenched in a rented flat in a block in Gabriel Salos Street in Tbilisi's Isani district began late on 21 November and escalated to a gunfight and explosions overnight after hours of futile attempts by the authorities to convince the men to surrender.

The fighting started when the suspects answered the authorities demands with heavy gunfire and tossing hand grenades at the security forces, wounding 5 officers, one of which named Ivane Golashvili died later in hospital.

Chatayev, a former fighter in Chechnya, had been arrested in Georgia during the Lopota incident in 2012, but then released on bail and cleared of charges of possessing explosives on account of "insufficient evidence".

[1][10] The Georgian security officials came up with more details on 26 December, claiming the group planned terror attacks against foreign diplomatic missions in Georgia and Turkey and identifying the other two killed militants as Ibragim Adashev and Aslambek Soltakhmadov.

[9] On 26 December, the Counter-Terrorism Department carried out a double operation in Tbilisi and the Pankisi Gorge in northeast Georgia, inhabited by the ethnic Kists, a Chechen subgroup.

That day, the Tbilisi City Court ruled that Shoaif Borziev, Chatayev's number arrested during the Isani standoff, was guilty of plotting terrorist acts in Georgia and sentenced him to thirteen years in prison.

[15] Four more men, all Georgian nationals, detained from December 2017 to January 2018, were found guilty of providing logistical support to the Chatayev group and sentenced from 10 to 12 years in prison.