REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, AMMAN -- The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) have crushed the Kurd defenses in the rural areas around Ayn Al-Arab city, known in Kurdish as Kobani, near Syria's borders with Turkey on Tuesday.

Fighting is still raging between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD), and the ISIL militants who now just 2 - 3 km away from the east of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a statement tonight.

The possible ISIL control of the city would take the militants' tally of Syrian towns and cities to 325, which aroused concerns over atrocities against the suspected PYD members.

Thousands of ISIL militants, equipped with heavy weapons, started their offensive against Ayn Al-Arab on September 16; their possible overrunning of the city could result in the displacement of its Kurd population amid fears of atrocities or humanitarian disaster.

The ISIL attacks in north and northeast Syria displaced up to 200,000 people in the last fortnight, the statement pointed out.

Meanwhile, the statement noted the ISIL militants released over 70 middle school students from Manbij who were kidnapped along with 150 students from Ayn Al-Arab while returning from Aleppo after the final year exams on May 29.

Over three dozen hostages are still in ISIL captivity under suspicion of being relatives to the PYD members.

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