When ISIS arrived in Addana about a year ago it was heralded with glee by militants in the conservative town. Several months later it was a different story. The ISIL had started exerting its harsh order through what one militant calls "terrorism and punishment."

"ISIL came in and took over one area and announced it was an Islamic state and did whatever they wanted," a militant gunman says.

The war between ISIL and other militant groups rages against the backdrop of the civil war in Syria. Both groups of foreign backed militants are opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"They used to leave the bodies of people they executed at the checkpoint for days," he says. "The corpses would rot. No one could avoid looking at them."

For months, reports have been emerging from northern Syria about ISIL atrocities.

In Addana, bullet holes riddle the walls at a former ISIS prison. Most of them are at the same level - the average height of a man.

At the town's courthouse, a fresh coat of white paint covers the black mark left by ISIL - known to paint buildings black as they take over Syrian towns. Executions would take place out front. In the back, freshly dug dirt marks where some of the bodies were buried in mass graves.

In early January, militant groups banded together and launched an offensive against ISIL in Addana and other areas in northern Syria.

"We had to leave the fronts with the regime," another militant said, "and fall back to fight ISIL and liberate the already liberated areas."

Still, many in Addana are too afraid to speak openly. So deep is their fear.

NJF/NJF