Mohammed Saad, a Syrian activist, was imprisoned by DAESH, hung by his arms and beaten regularly. Then one day, his jailors quickly pulled him and other prisoners down and hid them in a bathroom. The reason? A senior Muslim cleric was visiting to inspect the facility. The cleric had told the fighters running the prison that they shouldn't torture prisoners and that anyone held without charge must be released within 30 days, Saad told The Associated Press. Once the coast was clear, the prisoners were returned to their torment. "It's a criminal gang pretending to be a state," Saad said, speaking in Turkey, where he fled in October. "All this talk about applying Shariah and Islamic values is just propaganda, DAESH is about torture and killing," he said.

Syrians who have recently escaped DAESH's rule say public disillusionment is growing as DAESH has failed to live up to its promises to install a utopian "Islamic" rule of justice, equality and good governance. Instead, the group has come to resemble the dictatorial rule of Syria's Bashar Assad that many Syrians had sought to shed, with a reliance on informers who have silenced a fearful populace. Rather than equality, society has seen the rise of a new elite class the militant fighters who enjoy special perks and favor in the courts, looking down on "the commoners" and even ignoring the rulings of their own clerics. Despite the atrocities that made it notorious, the DAESH had raised hopes among some fellow Sunnis when it overran their territories across parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a "caliphate" in the summer of 2014. It presented itself as a contrast to Assad's rule, bringing justice through its extreme interpretation of Shariah and providing services to residents, including loans to farmers, water and electricity, and alms to the poor. Its propaganda machine promoting the dream of an Islamic caliphate helped attract militants from around the world.

In Istanbul and several Turkish cities near the Syrian border, the AP spoke to more than a dozen Syrians who fled DAESH-controlled territory in recent months. Most spoke on condition they be identified only by their first names or by the nicknames they use in their political activism for fear of DAESH reprisals against themselves or family.

" DAESH justice has been erratic," said Nayef, who hails from DAESH-held eastern Syrian town of al-Shadadi and escaped to Turkey in November with his family, largely because of Russian airstrikes. "They started off good and then, gradually, things got worse." He insisted that his last name not be printed, fearing for his safety. The group has recruited informers in the towns and cities it controls to watch out for any sign of opposition. "Like under the (Assad) regime, we were also afraid to talk against DAESH to anyone we don't fully trust," said Fatimah, a 33-year-old whose hometown of Palmyra was taken over by DAESH early last year. She fled to Turkey in November with her husband and five children to escape Russian and Syrian airstrikes.

DAESH has also become less able to provide public services, in large part because military reversals appear to have put strains on its finances. U.S. and Russian airstrikes have heavily hit its oil infrastructure a major source of funds. Over the past year, the group has lost 30 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, according to the U.S.-led anti-DAESH coalition. Many of those interviewed by the AP said there are lengthier cutoffs of water and electricity in their towns and cities and prices for oil and gas have risen.

Abu Salem, an activist from the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, said public acceptance of DAESH rule is eroding. "It has made an enemy of almost everyone," he told the AP in the Turkish city of Reyhanli on the Syrian border. One sign of the distance between the claims and realities is a 12-page manifesto by DAESH detailing its judicial system. The document, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, heavily emphasizes justice and tolerance. For example, it sets out the duties of the Hisba, the "religious police" who ensure people adhere to the group's dress codes, strict separation of genders and other rules. A Hisba member "must be gentle and pleasant toward those he orders or reprimands," it says. "He must be flexible and good mannered so that his influence is greater and the response (he gets) is stronger." Yet, the escaped Syrians all complained of the brutal extremes that the Hisba resorts to. One woman who lived in Raqqa said that if a woman is considered to have violated the dress codes, the militants flog her husband, since he is seen as responsible for her. When her neighbor put out the garbage without being properly covered, she said, the woman's husband was whipped.

Abu Manaf, a 44-year-old from Deir el-Zour, said some clerics challenged the group's enforcers over their wanton use of strict Shariah punishments like beheadings, stoning to death, flogging and cutting off limbs. More moderate clerics in DAESH argued that such punishments can only be implemented under specific conditions. They also complained about the militants' custom of displaying bodies of the beheaded in public as an example to others, violating Islamic tenets requiring the swift burial of the dead. "Many of those moderate clerics disappear, are killed or jailed for crimes they did not commit," said Abu Manaf, who left Deir el-Zour in November, then stayed in DAESH's de facto capital, Raqqa, for three weeks before he reached Turkey.