Syrian Kurdish forces push to clear IS from villages near Kobane

Syrian Kurdish militias, who drove out Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants from the center of Kobane after 134 days of battle, are launching operations into the villages surrounding the Syrian border town in a bid to clear the last frontiers of the battle from the Islamists.
A total of 27 villages in the periphery of the town have already been completely cleared of the Islamist militants, as the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters took to the offensive to take full control of the town that has been a symbolic battlefield in the fight against ISIL, which has seized a swath of Iraq and Syria.
ISIL militants retreated gradually from the center of the town, around 90 percent of which went to rack and ruin, moving towards peripheral villages, instead of directly returning to regions it still holds control of, like northern Syrian provinces Raqqa or Tal Abyad.
Kurdish militia, backed by Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the United States-led anti-ISIL coalition, are therefore continuing their assault on the villages surrounding Kobane to prevent any potential attack from ISIL.
In addition to their strategic importance, the surrounding villages are crucial for agriculture and livestock breeding, as the rest of the town was reduced to a mass of rubble and gutted buildings.