In the week since it captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has tried to win over residents and has stopped short of widely enforcing its strict brand of Islamic law, residents say.
The militants' restraint may only be temporary: In Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad that the group and tribal allies solidified control over at the start of the year, residents there say they have begun meting out Shariah punishments in private, flogging lawbreakers and cutting off thieves' hands.
And across the Syrian border in their urban stronghold of Raqqa, the insurgents are much more open about their ideology, killing people execution-style in the main square, banning music and imposing an Islamic tax on Christians for protection, according to activists and residents of that city.
The militants have done little so far to enforce those edicts, residents say.
Residents reached this week said those groups remain active in the city, as does a confederation of Sunni militants known as the Council of Tribal Revolutionaries.
...