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In one video, a 15-year-old relates his experience with the Cubs of the Caliphate — ISIL’s child soldiers — and why he had to leave, even after he graduated from training with the compulsory beheading of a prisoner, at the risk of losing his own life.

Another shows a young Syrian man turned prison guard for ISIL, also known as ISIS. The man escaped to Turkey with his family after seeing the women captives huddling in the corner turned into sex slaves for foreign fighters.

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They are chilling narratives, to say the least, and just the first of 45 videos based on interviews with defectors from ISIL that researchers hope can counter the powerful draw of the extremist group where they are strongest — online.

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“ISIS products are so emotionally compelling,” says Anne Speckhard, the director of the Washington-based International Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism, who conducted the interviews with co-author Ahmet Yayla, the former head of the anti-terrorism division at the Turkish National Police. “If you start liking and tweeting their products they start contacting you — and you’ll have multiple personal contacts …