Smoke rises after an U.S.-led air strike in the Syrian town of Kobani Ocotber 8, 2014. U.S.-led air strikes on Wednesday pushed Islamic State fighters back to the edges of the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani, which they had appeared set to seize after a three-week assault, local officials said. The town has become the focus of international attention since the Islamists' advance drove 180,000 of the area's mostly Kurdish inhabitants to flee into adjoining Turkey, which has infuriated its own restive Kurdish minority and its NATO partners in Washington by refusing to intervene. #

A satellite view of Kobani, Syria, the border with Turkey evident across the top of the image. See it mapped here. #

A Turkish forces armored vehicle in Mursitpinar, on the outskirts of Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, patrols the border road, backdropped by Kobani inside Syria, on October 8, 2014. #

In this image of Kobani, shot with an extreme telephoto lens and through heat haze from Mursitpinar, ISIS militants, along with a machine gun-fitted pickup truck, partially seen bottom right, hold positions in the Syrian city on October 8, 2014. #

An ISIS fighter walks on a hillside near a black flag belonging to the Islamic State as a Turkish army vehicle takes position near the Syrian town of Kobani, viewed from the Turkish-Syrian border on October 7, 2014. #

Turkish Kurds walk as Turkish tanks in the background hold their positions on a hilltop in the outskirts of Suruc, at the Turkey-Syria border, overlooking Kobani, on October 6, 2014. #

Turkish Kurds in Mursitpinar watch and shoot pictures over the border with their mobile phones as the fighting intensified between ISIS militants and Kurdish forces in Kobani on October 8, 2014. #

A damaged armoured vehicle sits on a deserted road in the eastern countryside of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, after ISIS fighters took control of the area on October 7, 2014. #

An ISIS fighter mans a checkpoint formerly used by Kurdish fighters in al-Jurn village in the countryside of Kobani, after the ISIS took control of the area on October 7, 2014. #

A damaged school building, which was used by Kurdish fighters as a base, in al-Aziza village in the countryside of Kobani, after ISIS fighters took control on October 7, 2014. #

In this image shot with an extreme telephoto lens from the Turkey-Syria border, ISIS militants are seen after placing their group's flag on a hilltop on the eastern side of Kobani, Syria, on October 6, 2014. #

An F-15E Strike Eagle receives fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker over northern Iraq after conducting airstrikes in Syria on September 23, 2014. U.S. coalition-led warplanes struck Islamic State group militants near the northern Syrian town of Kobani, for the first time on September 27, 2014, activists and a Kurdish official said. #

A before-and-after pair of images of a mosque's minaret in Kobani. In the image on the right, shot only hours after the first, smoke rises from a strike that destroyed the minaret during heavy fighting between ISIS militants and Syrian Kurds, on October 8, 2014. #

Turkish Kurds sit on the outskirts of Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, as they watch smoke rising from a fire following an airstrike in Kobani, Syria, on October 7, 2014. Outgunned Kurdish fighters vowed not to abandon their increasingly desperate efforts to defend the Syrian border town from ISIS militants pressing in from three sides and pounding them with heavy artillery. #