The Siege of Kobanî was launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIL, ISIS, or Daesh) militants on 13 September 2014, in order to capture the Kobanî Canton and its main city of Kobanî (also known as Kobanê or Ayn al-Arab) in northern Syria, in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava.By 2 October 2014, ISIL succeeded in capturing 350 Kurdish villages and towns within the vicinity of Kobanî, generating a wave of some 300,000 displaced Kurds, who fled across the border into Turkey's Şanlıurfa Province.