
A fighter of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) flashes a V-sign as he patrols the streets in the northern Syrian town of Kobani.

Kurdish forces took control of the town on Monday after driving out Islamic State fighters, a monitoring group and Syrian state media said, although the United States said the four-month battle was not yet over.

Known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, Kobani, the mainly Kurdish town close to the Turkish border, has become a focal point in the international fight against Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that has spread across Syria and Iraq. Some Islamic State supporters took to Twitter to say the fight for Kobani was still raging.

The YPG, whose fighters are pictured above, said Kobani had been "completely liberated" from Islamic State, which it referred to using the pejorative Arabic acronym "Daesh". "The defeat of Daesh in Kobani will be the beginning of the end for the group," a statement on its website said.

Islamist militants launched an assault on the town last year, using heavy weapons seized in Iraq and forcing tens of thousands of locals into exile. The Islamic State still has fighters in hundreds of nearby villages, and called on supporters on Monday to target people in the West with whatever weapons they could lay their hands on.