ISIS group behead five Kurdish fighters, including three women

Islamic State fighters beheaded seven men and three women in a Kurdish area of northern Syria, a monitoring group reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, among them three women, and four Syrian Arabs were beheaded near the town of Kobani.

The Kurdish fighters were taken prisoner during the battle for the mainly Kurdish town, also known as Ayn Arab, which is close to the Turkish border and has been besieged by Islamic State forces.

Dozens of militants and Kurdish fighters were killed in the fighting, said SOHR.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory, said a Kurdish male civilian was also beheaded. 'I don't know why they were arrested or beheaded. Only the Islamic State knows why. They want to scare people,' he said.

Images posted on social media networks show women's heads placed on a cement block, said to be in the northern Syrian city of Jarablous, which is held by militants.

Women fight alongside men in the Kurdish People's Protection Units, known as the YPG, which is the official armed wing of the main Kurdish political group in Syria.

Kurdish forces have been locked in fierce clashes with Islamic State militants in and around Kobani since the extremist group launched an assault in mid-September.

The fighting has created one of the single largest exoduses in Syria's civil war, with more than 160,000 people fleeing into Turkey, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said yesterday.