In the same week that David Cameron and Vladimir Putin agreed to open up dialogue and work together to "stop the rise of ISIL", the terror group has released its first edition of a new propaganda magazine written in Russian.
The magazine, called 'Istok', was released by Al-Hayat Media Center, the foreign language media division of Isis. Al-Hayat Media Center is also responsible for producing Isis' English language propaganda magazine 'Dabiq', which was first published in July 2014 and is now already in its ninth edition.
In a bold attempt to branch out to potential jihadi fighters living on the Caucasus, which has long been engulfed by sectarian conflict and is a significant base for Islamist terrorist organizations, the magazine dedicates a large amount of space to the stories of Russian jihadis who have left the country and travelled to Syria and Iraq in order to fight alongside the Islamic State.
Written in a similar format to the English language version of the magazine, the magazine's author utilizes relevant Qur'anic verses and emotive images to emphasise the importance of the establishment of the caliphate.
The production of magazine propaganda is not the only method Isis regularly utilize to spread their message of global jihad. This week, the BBC reported that up to 50,000 Twitter accounts are currently operating on behalf of Isis, spreading the group's propaganda videos, uploading images, spreading it's messages and recruiting would-be jihadists. Such accounts have been found to be based in over 100 different countries.
A new report by the UN security council estimates that approximately 20,000 fighters have now left their home countries to fight alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. This is a 7,000 increase since 2014 in spite of the US led airstrikes against the group in Syria and Iraq.
Of this figure of 20,000, around 3,400 appear to hail from Western countries, with the largest numbers coming from France, Belgium, the UK and Germany.
According to Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Russian Federal Security Service, approximately 1,700 foreign fighters currently in Iraq and Syria appear to have come from Russia and/or Chechnya.
