Kobani, Syria (CNN)When violence swallows a city as wholly as it has Kobani, as in so many of Syria's mottled cities, the fight becomes about who wins, rather than what is left for the victor. Its streets have been so ground down to the bone, that the prize -- so small but so intensely fought over -- is now unrecognizable. Every time you open your eyes in Kobani, you see the damage. INTERACTIVE: Explore the devastation of this Syrian city There are people still there, but it is hard to gauge how many. Food is scarce, as is fuel for heat. And day and night, indiscriminate, homemade mortars rain down on Kurdish homes -- ISIS borrowing a technique, it seems, from the Syrian regime, and using domestic gas canisters and junk metal to kill or maim civilians.
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Weeks of fighting between Kurds and ISIS have devastated the Kurdish city of Kobani
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Some people remain but food and fuel are scarce and mortars rain down
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Female Kurdish fighters are among those battling ISIS in the shell-blasted streets
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"I lost a lot of friends in this war and I resist to avenge their death," says one fighter
"No matter the destruction in @placeholder, it can be built again -- the important thing is to destroy this strange enemy that entered our land."
ISIS fighters lie dead in the no-man's land between the two front lines -- distant in their decay from the glorious death of which @placeholder propaganda often talks.