Editing Abu Omar al-Shishani (section)

===[[Militant Islam]] activities===
According to the Georgian Defense Ministry, Batirashvili was arrested in September 2010 for illegal possession of weapons and sentenced to three years in prison. He was allegedly released after serving about 16 months in early 2012 and immediately left the country. According to an interview on a jihadist website, Batirashvili said that prison transformed him; "I promised God that if I come out of prison alive, I'll go fight jihad for the sake of God", he said.

Batirashvili reportedly told his father that he was leaving for Istanbul, where members of the Chechen diaspora were ready to recruit him to lead fighters inside war-ravaged Syria; an older brother had already gone to Syria some months before. In an interview, Batirashvili said that he had considered going to Yemen and briefly lived in Egypt before ultimately arriving in Syria in March 2012.

His first command was the Muhajireen Brigade, an Islamist jihadist group made up of foreign fighters that was formed in the summer of 2012. His unit became involved in the Battle of Aleppo, and in October 2012, they assisted [[al-Nusra Front]] in a raid on an air defense and Scud missile base in Aleppo.

In May 2013, Batirashvili was appointed northern commander for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, with authority over its military operations and forces in northern Syria, specifically Aleppo, Raqqa, Latakia, and northern Idlib Provinces. By late 2013, he was the ISIL emir (leader) for northern Syria and was operating in and around Aleppo Province. He was also in charge of fighters from Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus. Units under his command participated in major assaults on Syrian military bases in and around Aleppo, including the capture of Menagh Airbase in August 2013. He was considered "one of the most influential military leaders of the Syrian opposition forces". By mid-2014, Batirashvili was a senior ISIL commander and Shura Council member based in Raqqa, Syria.

In August 2013, Batirashvili released a statement announcing the expulsion of one of his commanders, Emir Seyfullah, and 27 of his fighters. Batirashvili accused the men of embezzlement and stirring up the animosity of local Syrians against the foreign fighters by indulging in takfir—excommunication—against other Muslims. However, Seyfullah denied these allegations and claimed that the dispute was due to his refusal to join ISIL with Batirashvili. In late 2013, Batirashvili was replaced as leader of Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar by another Chechen commander known as Salahuddin, as most of the Chechen members of the group did not support Batirashvili's support of ISIL, due to their preexisting oath to the [[Caucasus Emirate]] militant group and its leader [[Dokka Umarov]]. 

By mid-2014, Batirashvili was a senior ISIL commander and Shura Council member operating in Raqqa, Syria. During this time, Batirashvili came to be known for using swarming and human wave tactics, most notably during the Siege of Menagh Air Base and Battle of Al-Tabqa airbase. He would use raw recruits for assaults, reasoning that the enemy would eventually be overwhelmed or run out of ammunition regardless of the casualties among ISIL fighters. Regional expert Joanna Paraszuk sarcastically remarked that Batirashvili's approach was based on the belief that "everyone want[s] to be a Shahid" (martyr).

According to his father, Batirashvili called him once since he left for Syria to tell him that he was now married to a Chechen woman and had a daughter named Sophia. As of mid-2014, Batirashvili lived with his family in a large villa owned by a businessman in the town of Huraytan, just northwest of Aleppo. He is said to have overseen the group’s prison facility near Raqqa, where foreign hostages may have been held. By 2016, Batirashvili led special battalions of the ISIL, in particular a unit named "the group of the central directorate", which appears to be the primary special forces strike force of the group.