TBILISI — Many believe the government is seeking to divert attention from a confrontation with an increasingly powerful church by arresting the head of the main opposition party, a close ally of outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili. That’s helping raise concerns about the country’s direction months before a presidential election this fall.

TBILISI — Two weeks after videos of prison guards beating and sodomizing prison inmates shocked people here, voters will take part in parliamentary elections on Monday that are being closely watched as a referendum on the pro-Western president who has led this small South Caucasus Mountains country for nearly a decade.

PANKISI GORGE, Georgia — Tbilisi has blamed a deadly shootout last week on Islamist militants it said took hostages after crossing the Caucasus Mountains from Russia. However, locals in this remote valley near the site of the gun battle close to the border indicate that most and possibly all of the 11 men reported killed by special forces troops may have been Georgian residents.