Wilayat al-Qawkaz is often underdiscussed and barely mentioned in the western english-speaking press, which is unsurprising, as it's one of the smaller and weaker ISIS "provinces" and hasn't participated in highly visual terrorist attacks in the West unlike ISIS Central in Syria & Iraq. Wilayat al-Qawkaz is composed in a large part by ex-Imarat Kavkaz members, another militant Jihadist organisation that precedes ISIS. Imarat Kavkaz is now largely dissolved in the North Caucasus, but maintains a presence amongst the extremist foreign fighters now fighting against the regime of Bashar-al-Assad.

ISIS Wilayat al-Qawkaz- also known as ISIS Caucasus Province- stems from the above group but has also recruited since. It remains highly dangerous but has a limited amount of active fighters, perhaps only in the double digits. It doesn't have established funding streams like ISIS Central, and cannot benefit from lack of governance such as that that exists in Somalia or Western Africa- indeed it's actively and harshly suppressed by Russian security forces, monitored closely by the FSB and raided often by state special forces. The constant pressure has limited the operational ability of the group, with only limited shooting and bombing attacks. This branch of ISIS is armed in a similar fashion to their other fighters around the world, but with some distinctive details reflecting the groups' strategic position and challenges.

The images shown and analysed below are all either seized by state security forces from captured devices, were released on social media by the militants, or were taken by the security forces for the purposes of Tactical Site Exploitation. Some are by their nature graphic, though I've endavoured to keep this to a minimum.

The following images all relate to a cell of ISIS-NC operating in the Endirey area of Dagestan, which is a populated town in the middle of a agricultural and rural landscape, which is also mountainous and wooded.