Editing Abu Omar al-Shishani (section)

===Early life===
Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili was born in the Georgian SSR, Soviet Union (now Georgia) in 1986. His father, Teimuraz Batirashvili, is an ethnic Batsbi of Chechen origin, which are orthodox Christians. His mother was a Muslim Kist—an ethnic Chechen subgroup from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge—of the Mastoy clan.

Batirashvili grew up in the largely Kist-populated Christian village of Birkiani, located in the Pankisi Gorge in an impoverished region of northeast Georgia. He was one of three sons, all of whom would convert to Islam against their father's wishes later in life. During his childhood, his father was rarely present, as he spent long periods of time working in Russia, and the children were mostly raised by their mother. In his youth, he worked as a shepherd in the hills above the gorge. Later in the 1990s, the Pankisi Gorge was a major transit point for rebels participating in the Second Chechen War, and it was there that Batirashvili reportedly came into contact with the Chechen rebels moving into Russia. According to his father, a young Batirashvili secretly helped Chechen militants into Russia and sometimes joined them on missions against Russian troops.