The Popular Protection Units (YPG) - the mainly Kurdish militia that controls this "canton", known as Al-Jazira, along the Turkish and Iraqi borders in remote north-eastern Syria - rallied for a counter-attack, and the ISIL terrorists pulled out.
THe ISIL militants left behind an extraordinary trail of devastation in a village now virtually deserted except for chickens, cats, stray dogs and YPG fighters.
Any building associated with the YPG was ransacked and torched during the 24-hour occupation.
But by far the greatest damage was done to the village's two mosques, which were systematically demolished - not the collateral damage of war, but deliberate destruction.
There was even a pile of ashes and charred pages where a collection of Qurans had been burnt, the verses of some of its Surahs still clearly identifiable on the delicately carbonized leaves.
For Muslims, these would be the ultimate acts of desecration because they consider the Quran the sacred word of the almighty God.
NTJ/NJF