“Electricity is provided for only two hours a day and there is a 3,000 Syrian pound fee (about $16) per month,” he said, adding that the migrants are often provided with free generators.

From his new, temporary home in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa, where he fled with his family in June so he could be treated for cancer, 45-year-old Ahmed said that Syrians now have second-class status in Raqqa.

“They are everywhere,” he said of the foreigners. “They occupy the houses of those that have fled, or sometimes just take apartments that they like in the good neighborhoods.” He said foreign fighters accused a friend of his of being associated with the regime and seized his home.

“The foreigners get two gas bottles for free and don’t have to queue for bread, while we had to pay 7,000 (about $37) a bottle.”

He said he was in Raqqa he was stopped in the street by a group of muhajireen who demanded to inspect his phone for any undesirable contacts.

“They raid Internet cafes and inspect mobile phones to see who you are talking to.”

But with no political solution to the conflict in Syria in sight, and exhausted after four years of war and neglect under the regime of Bashar Assad, some Raqqa residents welcome the restoration of administration in the city. Although under tight control, Raqqa offers one of the few places of order in a country wracked by the chaos of civil war.

“We have got used to it,” explained a Raqqa resident, who gave only his first name as Mohammed, citing fear of reprisals, as he waited to cross back into Syria from the Turkish Akcakale border crossing in January.

“If you are a good Muslim, you have nothing to worry about. As long as you pray five times a day, wear the niqab and don’t smoke,” he said.

Trading cotton across the border in Turkey from the plantations ISIL took control of over a year ago, Mohammed and others even praised the new administration.

Mohammed said he was offered a better salary by the group than he earned as a civil servant under Assad. After spending two years as a refugee in Turkey, he decided Syria under ISIL offered him a better standard of living.

Crime has also been all but eradicated given the extraordinary punishment and security apparatus.

Speaking via the social media messaging service Kik, one American ISIL fighter using the nom de guerre Abu Khalid Al-Amriki told Al Jazeera living in the caliphate was a virtual paradise.

“Imagine living in a drug-free society… where you can leave your business open and no one touches your stuff,” he said.

But for many Syrians, the harsh new security state is an affront to their moderate values, and an atmosphere of fear and suspicion pervades the city.

Ahmed said the risk of death was a pervasive reality.

“I was driving with my children and nephews home one evening and there, in the center of the roundabout were three decapitated soldiers. Their heads had been impaled.”

“I couldn’t stop my kids from seeing it.” said Ahmed. “They call themselves Islamic, but this is not Islam.”