The Jihadi Who Came in From the Cold

What one man's journey from member of the Islamic State's feared intelligence service to disillusioned defector tells us about the brutal extremist group.

At 22 years old, Abu Ibrahim looks like a typical university student in Europe or the United States. He is a tall and handsome, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He's also clean-shaven, with a brand new haircut — a departure from his appearance last year, when he sported long hair and a bushy beard while serving as a security official with the Islamic State, tasked with maintaining the group’s brutal rule in Syria.

From October 2014 to May 2015, Abu Ibrahim worked in the Islamic State's intelligence offices in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. He defected from the group after witnessing its brutal methods up close, and now lives as a refugee in a southern Turkish city near the Syrian border. His story provides a window into the qualities that the jihadi group looks for in its recruits and Abu Ibrahim's transformation from valued operative to someone ultimately disillusioned by the Islamic State....

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