After a brutal battle of attrition for the Syrian border town of Kobani, Kurdish forces announced this week that they had taken back control from Islamic State militants. While airstrikes and ground combat are still reportedly underway on the southern outskirts, for the first time in four months Kobani itself is a scene of relative calm.
The fight for the symbolic town -- the target of hundreds of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and where 2,000 Islamic State militants were reportedly killed -- has also left a devastated cityscape pockmarked by bullet holes and filled with bombed-out buildings. In a rare look inside Kobani, Agence France-Presse photojournalist Bulent Kilic has taken a series of incredible images capturing the town and its defenders in the aftermath of the Kurdish victory.