Irakli Alasania was born in Batumi, Adjara. He participated in the Abkhazian war despite not being an adult, but in the last days of war with the pressure of his father General Mamia Alasania he was forced to live in Abkhazia, his father was killed together with other Georgian politicians upon the fall of Sokhumi to the Abkhaz separatist forces on September 27, 1993. Irakli Alasania graduated from the Tbilisi State University with a degree in international law in 1995. Simultaneously he also took courses at the Georgian Academy of Security from 1994 to 1996. He worked for the Ministry of State Security of Georgia from 1994 to 1998. In 1999 the Pankisi Gorge crisis began, he was one of the key figures of resolving this conflict. He was against of cooperating with Russian forces against Chechen Boeviks. In October 2001 he was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. He then served as deputy Minister of State Security from February 2002 to February 2004, and deputy Minister of Defense from March 2004 until July 2004, when he was moved to serve as the Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council of Georgia.