ISIS behead five Kurdish fighters, including three women, whose severed heads are then shared online by terror fanatics

Islamic State fighters beheaded seven men and three women in a Kurdish area of northern Syria, a monitoring group reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, among them three women, and four Syrian Arabs were beheaded near the town of Kobani.

The Kurdish fighters were taken prisoner during the battle for the mainly Kurdish town, also known as Ayn Arab, which is close to the Turkish border and has been besieged by Islamic State forces. 

Woman fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units: Three women (not pictured) were among five Kurdish fighters reportedly beheaded by Islamic State militants after they were captured near Kobani

Dozens of militants and Kurdish fighters were killed in the fighting, said SOHR.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory, said a Kurdish male civilian was also beheaded. 'I don't know why they were arrested or beheaded. Only the Islamic State knows why. They want to scare people,' he said.

 

Images posted on social media networks show women's heads placed on a cement block, said to be in the northern Syrian city of Jarablous, which is held by militants.

Women fight alongside men in the Kurdish People's Protection Units, known as the YPG, which is the official armed wing of the main Kurdish political group in Syria.

Kurdish forces have been locked in fierce clashes with Islamic State militants in and around Kobani since the extremist group launched an assault in mid-September.

The fighting has created one of the single largest exoduses in Syria's civil war, with more than 160,000 people fleeing into Turkey, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said yesterday.

Islamic State fighters on outskirts of Syrian town of Kobani

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Kurdish fighters brandish their automatic rifles in Kobani: Fighting for the town has continued for several weeks, with dozens of Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters killed in recent days alone

More refugees streamed into Turkey from Kobani today, according to an AP journalist on the border.

Turkish authorities were registering them and bussing them to refugee camps. Others were being picked up at the border by their relatives in Turkey.

Islamic State militants have staked out positions east, west and south of Kobani. Thick dark smoke could be seen rising from an area south of the town today.

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Smokes rise after a mortar shell landed in the south of the city center of Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, seen from the Turkish side of border, as thousands of new Syrian refugees from Kobani arrive in Suruc, Turkey

The Islamic State group has pressed its assault on Kobani despite airstrikes by the US-led coalition on its positions. The U.S. has been bombing the Islamic State group across Syria since last week and in neighboring Iraq since early August.

The U.S. military said American warplanes conducted three air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria near Kobani overnight and today, destroying an armed vehicle, an artillery piece and a tank.

U.S. and British warplanes also carried out five air strikes in neighbouring Iraq, knocking out two armed vehicles, a militant-occupied building and two fighting positions north-west of Mosul, the country's second largest city, which fell to the Islamic State group in June.

One strike near the Haditha dam in Anbar province destroyed an armed vehicle, while another air raid outside Baghdad eliminated two armed vehicles.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK