Georgian Intelligence Service
The Georgian Intelligence Service is a national intelligence agency of Georgia, with its headquarters in Tbilisi. The current head of the service is Levan Izoria, appointed in 2019.
The GIS is directly subordinated to the Prime Minister of Georgia. It is responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment and conducting counter-intelligence duties abroad.History
After the declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia established its own intelligence agency, the Service for Information and Intelligence, on the basis of the Soviet-era Committee for State Security. The Georgian KGB was notable in that it was considered to be the one of the most effective of the KGB's regional Soviet branches, under the command of Aleksi Inauri and Givi Gumbaridze for most of its existence. From 1993 to 1997, the SII functioned as the Chief Directorate for Foreign Intelligence under the Ministry for State Security. On September 19, 1997, the agency was transformed into an independent State Intelligence Department, with two regional divisions for Adjara and Abkhazia. Being briefly under the Ministry for State Security from 2004 to 2005, the agency was again made independent as the Foreign Intelligence Special Service on January 24, 2005. The current name—Georgian Intelligence Service—was adopted in compliance with the new intelligence legislature passed in the Parliament of Georgia on April 27, 2010.Structure
The GIS consists of five principal subdivisions. These are:
