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Rafiq and his men have been operating since the turn of the year. They aim to disrupt conversations between would-be jihadists and the so-called caliphate they profess to join. It is dangerous work — some activists have already been captured by the terrorists. Earlier this week, according to the monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIL shut down private Wi-Fi access across Raqqa, forcing people into public internet cafes, where they can be better monitored.

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“ISIL only tell the world what they want but we want to tell people what is actually happening,” Abu Rafiq (his nom de guerre) says from an undisclosed location in his first interview with a British newspaper.

“We take as much as we can with our people on the ground, anything to counter what they say is the truth.

“They use Twitter, so we go on Twitter to target their propaganda. It is very dangerous because they are everywhere, watching everything. But we will win in the end.”

At present the terrorists are winning. Western authorities are still coming to grips with the sophistication of the slickly produced videos and social media profiles through which ISIL preaches. Then there is the sheer amount. One study from respected US think-tank the Brookings Institution published in March uncovered 46,000 Twitter accounts being used by ISIL supporters over the course of four months.

Separately, its various propaganda wings based within ISIL-controlled territory are churning out feature-length “documentaries” with titles such as Flames of War, periodicals such as the glossy magazine Dabiq, recruitment nashids (hymns), short clips known as “Mujatweets” and even a jihadist computer game based on Grand Theft Auto.