After the apocalypse

The video, shot exclusively for CNN by cameraman Gabriel Chaim, was taken on board a drone as it was flown over obliterated buildings of a once thriving town. 

As far as the eye can see, the destruction is jaw-dropping after what was the fiercest and bloodiest battle in the war against ISIS to date.

Thousands fled as the jihadis besieged the border town, subjecting it to daily bombardments and months of bitter street fighting before finally taking control late last year.

The terror group was eventually beaten back into the desert by Kurdish forces and coalition airstrikes that have reduced much of the town to rubble.

Earlier this year, MailOnline reported on the massive clean-up operation that faced locals as they tentatively returned to their homes.

Having being chased out of the city by brave resistance fighters and sustained U.S.-led airstrikes, the rotting bodies of ISIS fighters were left littering the streets.

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 faced a race against time to clear the rapidly decaying corpses from beneath the rubble to ensure disease and sickness did not take hold.

Images of the destruction were shared online by local journalist Jack Shahine, who became one of the first people to return to Kobane after ISIS were flushed out of the town. 

A committee was founded 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 in February, 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.'

Last week, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces finally left the town after a six-month deployment fighting ISIS, suggesting efforts to re-build the city were making progress. 

Local media reported that a convoy of seven buses of Iraqi peshmerga escorted by Turkish security forces reached the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa after travelling through the Mursitpinar border crossing.

(dailymail.co.uk)