Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes have reportedly regained control of the Syrian town of Kobani from Islamic State (IS) militants after four months of fighting.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group and Kurdish officials said on January 26 that the extremist group had been expelled from the town on the Turkish border.
Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that YPG forces are "pursuing some jihadists on the eastern outskirts of Kobani" but that fighting inside the destroyed city has ended.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that anti-IS forces controlled approximately 90 percent of the city.
Kobani has become a symbol in the battle against IS militants, who captured large swaths of Iraq and Syria last summer.
In September, Islamic State militants began capturing dozens of Kurdish villages around Kobani but have since lost more than 1,000 fighters trying to capture the town itself.
Meanwhile, a senior Iraqi Army officer announced that Iraqi forces had "liberated" the eastern Diyala Province from the Islamic State group.
