Everyone is bombing Raqqa now, whether it’s Russia, the US, France or, most recently, Britain. But women living in Islamic State’s de facto capital have found a certain solace in the airstrikes, according to local activists. While Isis enforcers are sent scurrying by the bombardment, hiding among the city’s 1 million civilians, the women of Raqqa can enjoy a brief moment of freedom.

“You see them going to their balconies and windows, to breathe the fresh air and look at their city,” says Tim Ramadan, the pseudonym of an activist with the group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, who has remained in the city to document Isis’s atrocities at great risk to himself.

“The people get a brief opening of freedom,” he adds.

In Mosul, the crown jewel of the totalitarian proto-state run by the jihadis, residents report excruciating pressures on locals from the skies as well as the ground.

“Living standards have deteriorated as there is no money in the bazaar and no employment in the city,” says Abdulkarim, a resident of Mosul. “People are terrified of the bombardment by the coalition and beheading and stoning still goes on the city by the [Islamic] State.”

Despite the mounting pressure on Isis in recent weeks, its grip on the two cities remains unrelenting, posing an intractable challenge to forces seeking to liberate them.

Ousted from Sinjar in Iraq, on the defensive in Raqqa province, and facing a greater aerial bombardment, the militants have responded by tightening their grip on Raqqa and Mosul, further subjugating citizens who live under their yoke and barring civilians from leaving.

Veiled women sit on a bench in Raqqa. Isis has imposed sweeping restrictions on personal freedoms, and women must wear the niqab, or full face veil, in public or face punishment. Photograph: Reuters

Interviews with residents and activists with contacts inside the two cities paint a picture of a Soviet-style dictatorship that has failed at providing basic services and justice to citizens.

Much has changed after two years of brutal rule by Isis, says Ramadan, a Raqqa native, who describes the city now as a “giant prison”. It is difficult to contact individuals living in Raqqa, as Isis has banned internet at home and closed down most cyber cafes.



Women rarely venture out for fear of being reprimand by Isis police, known as the Hisbah, and the female unit, the Khansaa Brigade, even for the slightest transgression, such as carrying a brightly coloured handbag.

“The life of a girl was itself a violation,” Ramadan says.

For Abdulkarim, the Mosul resident, the takeover of his hometown by Isis militants was at first a blessing. Under their rule, traffic across Mosul eased as blast walls were removed, security improved, and for a while, services such as electricity, water and street-cleaning were better than they had been when the Iraqi government was in control.

The 31-year-old government employee was happy to pay a small amount of his 835,000 dinar (£490) salary that came from Baghdad to Isis as tax, and even donated an extra 7,000 dinars to the caliphate voluntarily. The militants treated their new subjects with respect and greeted them when they passed each other in the street.

But as the city’s residents prepare for their second winter under Isis control, economic blockade from Baghdad and bombardment by the US-led coalition has made life grim.

In July, Baghdad stopped providing salaries to government employees living in areas under Isis control, including Abdulkarim, whose income vanished overnight.

The lack of cash means people cannot afford to buy anything but the most basic goods. Many shops have shut, and the price of fuel and gas has increased by four or five times.

Raafat Alzirai, from Mosul but who resides in Erbil and heads the Nineveh Reporters Network, a group of citizen journalists inside the city who try to shed light on what is happening there, says desperation has pushed some people into the arms of Isis.

“We have information that around 60-70 people went and gave allegiance to the caliphate at Omar al-Aswad mosque in order to receive monthly small salaries,” says Raafat, who has about 10 people in Mosul providing daily updates to him via the internet.

“Mosul has become like a big prison and people appear to be sedated with the hope that one day things will change,” adds Raafat, whose own father was killed by extremists in 2003.

Life is becoming more and more difficult Maajid, a mechanic in Mosul

Those who work with Isis are entitled to certain benefits and Maajid, a 56-year-old mechanic in Mosul, said some people collaborated with the militants to receive bigger rations of fuel and food. Maajid, who has 11 children, said the situation was almost unbearable.

“Life is becoming more and more difficult,” he told the Guardian from inside the city. “Even if you live in the worst part of the world, you need food, water and electricity to survive.”

Maajid said he receives 80,000 dinars, 15kg of flour and 10kg of rice, as well as small quantities of other foodstuffs from Isis.

“I can’t live on this ration with my big family. People are angry but no one can protest.”

Mobile phones are banned, people are not allowed to smoke cigarettes and those caught listening to music are punished. The militants punish people who use the internet and mobile phones, fearing that they may provide intelligence to their enemy.

About a month ago, a man was found with a mobile phone in his possession and punished with 45 lashes. As he was being whipped, he cried out, swearing at the Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and for that he was executed, according to locals in the city.

A site in Raqqa hit by what activists said were airstrikes by forces loyal to Syria’s President Assad. Photograph: Nour Fourat/Reuters

Tired of hardship and living in constant fear of the militants and bombardment, hundreds are defying a ban on leaving, often paying large sums to smugglers to get them out. Those who are caught fleeing are punished severely.

In the frontline Iraqi town of Dibis near Kirkuk, the head of internal security Ali Mohammad is responsible for processing those who flee Isis controlled areas.

“We have collected the bodies of three children who died of hunger as the families walked on foot for hours to reach peshmerga positions,” he says.

About 1,000 people are being held in a village near the frontline, guarded by peshmerga as the Kurds try to process them one by one, to root out any infiltrators among them.

“We don’t have a problem with the IDPs [internally displaced persons] but we are worried that spies may have mingled and cross the frontline,” says Mohammad. “Daesh [Isis] has mined the path of people fleeing and my officers collected the bodies of five civilians that stepped on IEDs last month.”

Salah, a 34-year-old former police officer, fled from a village south of Mosul, swimming across the Great Zaab river to reach Kurdish positions. Exhausted but relieved to have escaped, Salah said: “If you are with them [Isis] they treat you well but if you are not they don’t treat you well. They treat you like second-class citizens.”

With a haunted look, Salah described how his best friend Rabi’eh was executed by Isis, which filmed him as he was drowned in a cage.

“I cried, my childhood friend was gone,” said Salah. “If the time comes to liberate Mosul, I will be the first one to go and kill Daesh.”

In Raqqa, the Isis surveillance state is in full swing. Cameras on major roads and near Isis headquarters keep a close eye on the civilians in the city, and patrols of the local police are unrelenting.

The men also have a dress code – loose clothes, no beard shaving, and are prone to being stopped and searched at random, with police inspecting mobile phones for any signs of dissidence or immorality.

Last month, Isis began stopping people from leaving except in exceptional medical circumstances, reinforcing their checkpoints around the city’s entrances. They have kept rotating fighters periodically, to give residents a sense that the group remains powerful despite recent setbacks on the battlefield. Electricity is available sporadically, based chiefly on the whim of the militants. It remains unclear how airstrikes on oil and gas installations have affected energy supplies within the territory.

An Isis militant distributes soft drinks and biscuits along with religious pamphlets to a girl, right, during a street preaching event in Tel Abyad in Raqqa province. Photograph: AP

Propaganda and indoctrination are everywhere. Images of medieval beheadings and hand chopping, characteristic of Isis’s law enforcement and which evoke such outrage abroad, are so commonplace in Raqqa that locals have been desensitised. When every minor infraction engenders a few dozen lashes in a public square, there is little that shocks people.

“Before, people used to close their eyes,” says Ramadan. “Isis has succeeded in making it normal.”

Worse, they have infused their ideology into school curricula, and recruited youngsters into their feared police apparatus, sending many as suicide bombers and appointing teenagers to run security within the city.

“In school, the books don’t have math problems that ask you what two plus two is; the math problem is always two guns plus two guns equals what,” Ramadan says. “They will bring a bomb to class to show it to the children and tell them they have nothing to fear from it because they are men, and the creative writing exercise is about a boy whose father carries out a suicide bombing.”

Politicians say it will take 10 years to destroy Isis. Can you imagine living like this for another 10 years? Tim Ramadan, Raqqa resident

Still, the little things are often the ones that evoke the most nostalgia. After two years of Isis rule, Ramadan and his friends rarely meet at each other’s homes to play cards, or stay up late at local cafes. Most of the activist collective he works with supports the Spanish club Real Madrid. After them teams recent crushing loss to arch-rivals Barcelona, the group posted an image near Raqqa’s main gate with a piece of paper saying: “Raqqa stands with Real Madrid.”

“I wanted people to know that not everyone in the city is Isis, that there are people here yearning for freedom,” he says. “People who like to watch the Classico, and who have hope.”

“What happened in France was terrible,” he adds. “But we have these tragedies here every day, perhaps not on the same scale on a single day, but imagine living under Isis and in the long-term it’s much worse. And yet you have politicians in the west saying it will take 10 years to destroy Isis. Can you imagine living like this for another 10 years?”



Services

Electricity and water has deteriorated significantly. Before Isis came, Mosul had about 20 hours a day of electricity from the national grid. Within four months of Isis taking over, it dropped to six-eight hours. For the past three months it has fallen to two hours a day. Each neighbourhood has water once a week at different times to fill up their tanks. In Raqqa, electricity is sporadic, dependent on how happy the militants are with the people’s adherence to their rules.

Fuel

In Mosul, the price of petrol has increased from 450 dinars to 2,000-2,500 dinars.





Entertainment

Isis has banned smoking cigarettes and waterpipes, while playing music has been declared unlawful.

Sports

There are three big football stadiums in Mosul but no games. People walk in the parks and children are allowed to play there.

Religion

Mosul was a conservative, religious city even before Isis arrived, but not praying is punishable by Isis. In Raqqa, the group has banned taxi drivers from working during prayer times.

Media

There is only one radio station in Mosul called Bayan. There was talk of Isis opening a TV channel but that has not materialised.

Coalition bombing

People in Mosul are terrified of coalition bombing raids. Civilians have reportedly been killed in two recent occasions. Isis sets up its bases in populated neighbourhoods.

In Raqqa, activists say people do not fear coalition raids which tend to target isolated Isis positions. But they also say the militants seek shelter in civilian streets, buildings and neighbourhoods when sirens alerting to an incoming coalition attack are on.