ISIS continues to hold the world's attention with yet another globally broadcast execution and an ongoing battle for a critical town on the Turkish-Syrian border. 
 
 But glimpses into the inner workings of the group are fairly unusual, even in light of ISIS's vast resources and global profile. A recent interview with a 25-year-old woman who was a member of ISIS's religious police in Raqqa offers a glimpse into what it's like to work within one of the world's most notorious terror organizations. 
 
 On October 5th, CNN interviewed a 25-year-old Syrian woman who had recently defected from Khansa’a brigade, an all-female ISIS division that enforces conservative social norms based on ISIS's radical interpretation of Islam — for instance, the Khansa'a would sometimes lash women for not wearing "the proper sharia clothing." 
 
 "Khadija" was an elementary school teacher before she convinced her family to move to Raqqa, ISIS's de facto capital in Syria — she had met a Tunisian ISIS sympathizer, who spoke of marrying her, through social media. 
 
 
 
 "I got in touch with my cousin, and she said, 'You can come join us in the Khansa'a Brigade.' She was living in Raqqa with her husband who was with the Islamic State," said Khadija. 
 
 
 
 Khadija rationalized her initial attraction to the group. She saw ISIS as an extension of the early waves of dissent that have welled in Syria since March of 2011, back when the country's nascent uprising seemed like the latest chapter in the ongoing the Arab Spring, rather than the prelude to a horrific civil war. 
 
 
 
 Her Tunisian recruiter also emphasized how the group would eventually overthrow the hated regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. "He would say, 'We are going to properly implement Islam. Right now we are in a state of war, a phase where we need to control the country, so we have to be harsh,'" Khadija told CNN. 
 
 
 
 She patrolled the streets, armed and pleased at first with the authority she held. But she grew disillusioned with the group's cruelty. 
 
 "There were cases where the wife had to be taken to the emergency ward because of the violence, the sexual violence," she said in reference to foreign fighters specifically. She also witnessed a man's beheading. 
 
 
 
 "I said enough, after everything I had already seen and all the times I had stayed silent," Khadija said to CNN. 
 
 The interview is especially valuable in exposing the blurred lines that run through the power vacuum in Syria. At one point, it seems, ISIS was able to harness the energies of a disappointed revolution and convince some beleaguered Syrian that the Islamic State was a viable manifestation of Syria's anti-government struggle. 
 
 But Khadija shows how that can backfire — and how ISIS's tactics are so brutal that they're capable of alienating even a once-loyal foot soldier. ||||| Story highlights 25-year-old joined ISIS after chaos following protests against Syrian president 
 
 Lured by man she met online, she became interested in ISIS 
 
 She joined female police brigade that enforces ISIS rules on women 
 
 She witnessed beheading and violence against women 
 
 The petite 25-year-old tentatively opens the door to the hotel room where we've agreed to meet. Her face is covered, but her body language betrays her anxiety. 
 
 She slowly lifts her niqab, revealing her young, heart-shaped face. Her large brown eyes, filled with guilt and turmoil, are delicately made up under perfectly sculpted brows. 
 
 She calls herself 'Khadija.' It's not her real name, because she's a marked woman. Once a member of a fearsome, female ISIS brigade, she's a recent defector, disillusioned by the group's brutality. 
 
 Her interview with CNN is the first time she has ever told anyone her story. 
 
 'I ran away to something uglier' 
 
 Growing up in Syria, Khadija's family ensured she got an education. She earned her college degree and began teaching elementary school. Khadija describes her family and upbringing as "not overly conservative." 
 
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 When the Syrian uprising began more than three and a half years ago, Khadija joined the masses who began peaceful protests against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. 
 
 "We'd go out and demonstrate. The security services would chase us. We'd write on walls, have different outfits to change into," she said. "Those days were great." 
 
 But it was when the Syrian uprising spiraled into chaos and violence that she said she began to lose her soul, her humanity. 
 
 "Everything around us was chaos," she said, her words tumbling out. "Free Syrian Army, the regime, barrel bombs, strikes, the wounded, clinics, blood -- you want to tear yourself away, to find something to run to. 
 
 "My problem was I ran away to something uglier." 
 
 Gradual induction 
 
 She found herself drawn to the eloquence of a Tunisian whom she met online. Taken with his manners, she grew to trust him over time and he gradually lured her into the Islamic State, she said. He assured her that the group was not what people thought, that it was not a terrorist organization. 
 
 "He would say, 'We are going to properly implement Islam. Right now we are in a state of war, a phase where we need to control the country, so we have to be harsh.'" 
 
 He told her he was coming to the Syrian city of Raqqa, that they could even get married. 
 
 "I got in touch with my cousin, and she said, 'You can come join us in the Khansa'a Brigade. She was living in Raqqa with her husband who was with the Islamic State," Khadija said. The brigade is the feared, all-female police for ISIS. 
 
 Khadija convinced her family to move to Raqqa, saying it would be easier to register her younger siblings in school, and that they would have the support of relatives. 
 
 With her cousin to open the doors, Khadija was welcomed into the feared Khansa'a brigade. 
 
 Inside the female ISIS brigade 
 
 The Khansa'a Brigade is made up of around 25 to 30 women and is tasked with patrolling the streets of Raqqa to ensure that women adhere to proper clothing as outlined by the Islamic State. 
 
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 Beaded or slightly form-fitting abayas are banned. Women are not allowed to show their eyes. 
 
 Those who broke the laws are lashed. 
 
 The lashings to the women who broke ISIS rules were carried out by Umm Hamza. 
 
 When Khadija first saw Umm Hamza, she was terrified. 
 
 "She's not a normal female. She's huge, she has an AK, a pistol, a whip, a dagger and she wears the niqab," Khadija said. 
 
 Brigade commander Umm Rayan sensed Khadija's fear "and she got close to me and said a sentence I won't forget. She said, 'We are harsh with the infidels, but merciful among ourselves.'" 
 
 Khadija was trained to clean, dismantle, and fire a weapon. She was paid $200 a month and received food rations. 
 
 Her family sensed Khadija was slipping away, but were helpless to stop it. Her mother tried to warn her. 
 
 "She would always say to me, 'Wake up, take care of yourself. You are walking, but you don't know where you are going.'" 
 
 Second thoughts 
 
 Initally, Khadija did not pay attention to her mother's warnings, seduced by the sense of power. But eventually, she started questioning herself and the principles of the Islamic State. 
 
 "At the start, I was happy with my job. I felt that I had authority in the streets. But then I started to get scared, scared of my situation. I even started to be afraid of myself." 
 
 She started thinking: "I am not like this. I have a degree in education. I shouldn't be like this. What happened to me? What happened in my mind that brought me here?" 
 
 And her image of ISIS began to crumble. 
 
 Burned into her mind is an image she saw online of a 16-year-old boy who was crucified for rape. She questioned her inclusion in a group capable of such violence. 
 
 "The worst thing I saw was a man getting his head hacked off in front of me," she said. 
 
 Violence against women 
 
 Even more personally, she witnessed ISIS' brand of violence reserved for women. The brigade shared its building with a man who specialized in marriage for ISIS fighters. 
 
 "He was one of the worst people," she said of the man tasked with finding wives for both local and foreign fighters. 
 
 "The foreign fighters are very brutal with women, even the ones they marry," she said. "There were cases where the wife had to be taken to the emergency ward because of the violence, the sexual violence." 
 
 Khadija saw a future she did not want. 
 
 With her commander pressuring her to submit to marriage, Khadija decided she needed to leave the brigade. 
 
 "So it was at this point, I said enough. After all that I had already seen and all the times I stayed silent, telling myself, 'We're at war, then it will all be rectified.' 
 
 "But after this, I decided no, I have to leave." 
 
 Khadija left just days before the coalition airstrikes, but her family remains in Syria. 
 
 She was smuggled across the border to Turkey. 
 
 Life after ISIS 
 
 Khadija still wears the niqab, not just to conceal her identity but also because she's struggling to adapt back to life outside the Islamic State. 
 
 Regretful of her immersion in radical Islam, she is wary of another sudden change. 
 
 "It has to be gradual, so that I don't become someone else. I am afraid of becoming someone else. Someone who swings, as a reaction in the other direction, after I was so entrenched in religion, that I reject religion completely," she said. 
 
 Towards the end of our interview, speaking about how ISIS could have gotten a foothold in parts of Syrian society, she has a personal moment. 
 
 "How did we allow them to come in? How did we allow them to rule us? There is a weakness in us." 
 
 Khadija spoke to us because she said she wants people, especially women, to know the truth about ISIS. 
 
 "I don't want anyone else to be duped by them. Too many girls think they are the right Islam," she said. 
 
 She desperately wants to be the girl she was before falling under the spell of ISIS -- "a girl who is merry, who loves life and laughter... who loves to travel, to draw, to walk in the street with her headphones listening to music without caring what anyone thinks," she said. 
 
 "I want to be like that again."
– A Syrian elementary school teacher says she joined ISIS to help topple President Bashar al-Assad, but ended up fleeing the group for her life. Covered in a niqab and calling herself Khadija, she tells CNN that she initially enjoyed demonstrations against al-Assad and came to hate the chaos and bloodshed of war. "My problem was I ran away to something uglier," she says. After meeting a Tunisian online who promoted ISIS, she joined an all-female arm of the group called Khansa'a Brigade. With 25 to 30 other women, Khadija walked the streets Raqqa to ensure that women covered their eyes and wore only loose-fitting abayas. "At the start, I was happy with my job," she says. "I felt that I had authority in the streets." The group's leader was a "huge," terrifying woman with "an AK, a pistol, a whip, [and] a dagger," says Khadija. "She got close to me and said a sentence I won't forget. She said, 'We are harsh with the infidels, but merciful among ourselves.'" But 25-year-old Khadija struggled to accept what she saw: women whipped for violating Islamic law, a teenage boy crucified for rape, a man beheaded in front of her, and foreign ISIS fighters who sexually abused their own wives. When Khadija's commander wanted to marry her off, that was it: Khadija fled to Turkey, where she's readjusting to regular life and yearning to be the "merry" girl she once was. Business Insider says the interview reveals the "blurred lines" in Syria, where disappointed revolutionaries are willing to join the Islamic State—which is so "brutal" that it's "capable of alienating even a once-loyal foot soldier."