Kurdish Fighters Build Their Own 'Mad Max' Tanks to Halt the Advance of Isis

As Kurdish forces in northern Syria armed with AK-47s battle desperately against Isis militants armed with state-of-the-art weapons captured from the Iraqi army, they have been forced to use their wits to halt the onslaught of the jihadis.

Pictures of the specially adapted armoured vehicles of the People's Protection Units (YPG) of northern Syria have emerged online, and are a testament to the ingenuity of the fighters.

Looking like something from a Mad Max movie, many appear to be trucks or agricultural vehicles, fitted out with camouflaged armour, and decorated with the insignia of the YPG.

The small town of Kobane has been besieged by Isis militants for over a week, defended by YPG soldiers armed with AK-47s and wearing flak jackets.

Kudish peshmerga fighters in Iraq have received specialist weapons as well as training from US and European countries in their battle to halt Isis, but the YPG rely on relatively dated equipment, much of it from the Soviet era.

Last week, aid supplies began to reach Kobane. Residents there said they did not food: they wanted weapons.

"Don't send us food, we don't need food," one man told the Independent. "We will eat mud if we have to. Send us weapons, send us peshmerga."

In recent weeks hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds have been forced to flee across the border into Turkey, as Isis launched an onslaught into the autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Syria.

Despite their basic weaponry though, the YPG are determined to fight

"We saw what Isis did to women in Sinjar. They kidnapped them and now they're being sold in the market. But I'm going to defend my land," fighter Maher Khalil told the paper. "Now [the US] has started bombing, we can fight again. I don't care if I lose my life. If I die, I'll die fighting for my homeland."