[4][5] Starting in November 2014, mid-level commanders of the Caucasus Emirate militant group began publicly switching their allegiance from Emirate leader Aliaskhab Kebekov to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, following al-Baghdadi and his group's declaration of a caliphate earlier in the year.

[8][9] Further pledges of allegiance to al-Baghdadi occurred in June 2015 by Vilayat Nokhchicho leader Aslan Byutukayev,[10] and in an audio statement purportedly made by militants in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.

[11] On 23 June 2015, IS's spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani accepted these pledges and announced the creation of a new Wilayah, or Province, covering the North Caucasus region.

[14] In a video also released in September, Asildarov called on IS supporters in the Caucasus to join the fight there, rather than travel to Iraq and Syria.

[15] On 4 December 2016, Russian security services reported that they had killed Asildarov and four of his associates in a raid on a house in Makhachkala.

[18] In early January 2019, the group claimed responsibility for the 2018 Magnitogorsk building collapse, and an attack the following day.

[20][21] On 12 April 2019, in an extensive operation involving Alpha Group, local police and Rosgvardia, 2 heavily armed IS militants were killed in the city of Tyumen.

[citation needed] On 23 June 2019, a knife-wielding militant attacked two police officers just outside Ramzan Kadyrov's residence in Grozny.