Having being chased out of the city by brave local resistance fighters and sustained U.S.-led airstrikes, the terrorists' rotting bodies now litter the streets of the predominantly Kurdish city.

Despite the militants having brought rape and massacre to the local population and leaving the once-bustling ancient city as little more than rubble-strewn ruins, the Kurds insist on giving dead ISIS fighters a proper burial wherever possible.

But with collapsed buildings at every turn, the locals face a race against time to clear the rapidly decaying corpses from beneath the rubble and ensure disease and sickness does not hit the hundreds of Kobane residents now returning to their homes in the wake of ISIS' retreat.

Images of the clean-up operation were shared online by local journalist Jack Shahine, who became one of the first people to return to Kobane after fearless, outnumbered soldiers from the all-male YPG and all-female YPJ Kurdish resistance forces chased Islamic State terrorists out of the city.

A committee was founded 19 days ago to oversee the massive clean-up operation in Kobane, with the removal of the hundreds of rotting terrorist corpses littering the streets the Kurds' priority.

Speaking to MailOnline on his return to the city, Shahine said: Disease is something the local authorities in Kobane will not allow. The board will not allow the local civilians to come back into destroyed areas until they are completely free of bodies.'

ISIS launched its unexpected assault on Kobane in mid-September. 

Over the following four months, brave men and women belonging to the Kurdish YPG and YPJ resistance groups defied all odds and prevented the Islamist militants capturing the city centre, while American and Arab warplanes bombarded ISIS-held buildings from above. 

Although the terrorists were forced back to the Euphrates River more than 18 miles away in January, their campaign of terror and destruction inside Kobane is still apparent from the huge piles of rubble lining the roads and fact the once-bustling city remains quiet and sparsely populated.

Having escaped 400 yards over the border to the relative safety of southern Turkey upon ISIS' advance on Kobane, Shahine and thousands of other Kurds watched in horror as the terrorists set about destroying the city - pinning YPG and YPJ forces back in the centre in a barbaric assault.

At one point things looked so bad that Turkish President Recep Erdogan declared the city was only hours away from completely falling into ISIS' bloodstained hands.

Alongside the Kurdish troops, Shahine says, were two battalions from the Free Syrian Army: one group from Raqqa and another from nearby Manbij.

'We never expected ISIS to attack us and destroy the city. We never expected the coalition airstrikes. It was a huge, huge thing for us. It was beyond our imagination,' he added.

Over the following four months these forces engaged ISIS in ferocious street battles, while coalition warplanes targeted the militants from the air. Kurdish peshmerga forces from neighbouring Iraq later travelled to join the fight, giving the embattled ground forces a much needed boost.

By late January, Kobane's fearless ISIS resistance brigades had done what seemed impossible only months earlier – forced the terrorists to retreat first into the city's suburbs, then lift the siege altogether and flee to their strongholds along the Euphrates River, more than 18 miles away. 

(dailymail.co.uk)