TURKEY: After the Syrian government stopped paying him, a technician who had spe

nt two decades pumping the country's oil received an enticing offer: do the same
work for the jihadis of the Islamic State
starting at three times the salary.
He was soon helping to fill tanker trucks with crude oil to fund the Islamic Sta
te. But frequent executions of those suspected of spying and deadly airstrikes b
y government jets made life hard, and he grew angry that the country's resources
were financing the jihadis while schools and hospitals were being shut down.
"We thought they wanted to get rid of the regime, but they turned out to be thie
ves," the technician said after fleeing to this city in southern Turkey.
The Islamic State claims to be more than a militant group, selling itself as a g
overnment for the world's Muslims that provides a range of services in the terri
tory it controls.
But that statehood project is now in distress, perhaps more so than at any other
time since the Islamic State began seizing territory in Iraq and Syria, accordi
ng to a range of interviews with people who have recently fled. Under pressure f
rom airstrikes by several countries, and new ground offensives by Kurdish and Sh
iite militias, the jihadis are beginning to show the strain.
Some fighters have taken pay cuts, while others have quit and slipped away. Impo
rtant services have been failing because of poor maintenance. And as its smuggli
ng and oil businesses have faltered, the Islamic State has fallen back on ever-i
ncreasing taxes and tolls imposed on its squeezed citizens.
Those stresses could provide opportunities for the group's many enemies, but the
y do not point to its imminent collapse.
Ground forces ready to fight the Islamic State
also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh
in its strongholds in Syria and Iraq are still lacking. And the group is adapti
ng, keeping its international profile high by launching foreign attacks like tho
se that brought down a Russian airliner in Egypt and paralyzed Paris. It is also
investing in new affiliates in countries like Libya, where it faces little resi
stance.
But the promise of statehood on land it controls in Syria and Iraq remains the m
ain factor distinguishing it from al-Qaida and a powerful draw for recruits from
around the world.
That call to join the Islamic State is still going out, and having an effect, on
social media and within jihadi circles. But its promises ring increasingly holl
ow as residents living in ISIS-controlled areas flee deprivation, an intensifyin
g barrage of airstrikes and an organization that many Sunni Muslims say has acte
d more like an organized-crime ring than their defender.
Even some residents who chose to stay when the jihadis took over are now paying
smugglers to get them around checkpoints designed to keep them in.
"So many people are migrating," said a teacher from the Syrian city of Deir al-Z
our who fled to Turkey last month. "ISIS wants to build a new society, but they'
ll end up all alone."
When the schools run by the Syrian government closed, the teacher said she set u
p an informal one and kept it going when the jihadis arrived. That meant buying
the baggy black gowns they forced women to wear in public and finding ways to en
tertain her students without music or art, both of which were forbidden.
Sometimes, they sculpted with soap, she said.
But she gave up, she said, after some activists were rounded up and executed, wo
rried that her turn would come next.
Even as their cruelty has driven residents away, the jihadis have long recognize
d and acted on the need for skilled professionals to build statelike institution
s.
The caliphate "is in more need than ever before for experts, professionals and s
pecialists who can help contribute to strengthening its structure and tending to
the needs of their Muslim brothers," read an appeal last year in the group's En
glish-language magazine, Dabiq.
But that call has come up short, leaving the jihadis struggling to find people a
ble to run oil equipment, fix electricity networks and provide medical care, for
mer residents say.
"They don't have professionals, so they have to pay people to do things," said a

pharmacist from eastern Syria.

Stories abound of the Islamic State putting loyal members in positions they are
not qualified for. The head of medical services in one town is a former construc
tion worker, residents said. The boss at an oil field was a date merchant, accor
ding to a former employee.
In Raqqa, the National Hospital featured in a propaganda video about health serv
ices in the caliphate is all but closed because so many doctors have fled, accor
ding to an aid worker with relatives in the city.
And a ban on male doctors' treating female patients left women in one town with
no doctors at all, according to the pharmacist. The jihadis tried to fill the ga
p by employing midwives.
Also driving people out is an onerous tax system carried out in the name of zaka
t, or Islamic alms. The jihadis collect, among other taxes, a yearly share of ev
ery harvest and herd of livestock, and make shopkeepers pay a share of their inv
entory. Infractions like failing to wear proper clothing lead to fines equal to
1 gram of gold, payable in local currency.
Fleeing has become increasingly difficult, as the jihadis try to keep people in.
Unable to get permission to leave, Naef al-Asaad, 55, paid a smuggler $150 per p
erson to get 10 members of his family from the ISIS-held town of Shadadi to the
Turkish border. On the way, one person stepped on a land mine, causing a blast t
hat killed Asaad's daughter, her husband, two of their children and one other re
lative, he said.
"ISIS would not let us leave," Asaad said. "They said, 'You are going to the inf
idels.'"