US-led coalition strikes IS-held Kurdish area on Syria-Turkey border
First time strikes in Kobani come amid fighting between Islamic State fighters and members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units.
US coalition-led warplanes struck jihadis attacking a town near the Turkish border for the first time Saturday, as well as positions including wheat silos in the country's east, activists and a Kurdish official said.
The coalition, which began its aerial campaign against Islamic State fighters in Syria early Tuesday, aims to roll back and ultimately crush the extremist group, which has created a proto-state spanning the Syria-Iraq border. Along the way, the militants have massacred captured Syrian and Iraqi troops, terrorized minorities in both countries and beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker.
Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, said some of the strikes targeted for the first time Islamic State group positions near the northern town of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab. The town has been under attack by jihadis for days and Khalil said the strikes destroyed two tanks.
He said the town was later shelled by jihadis, wounding several civilians.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the coalition's strikes near Kobani came amid heavy fighting between Islamic State fighters and members of the Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPK. It said there were casualties among jihadis.
The activists had no immediate word on casualties from Saturday's strikes. The Observatory reported Friday that 13 civilians have been killed by the strikes since they began.
Kurdish fighter Majid Goran told the Associated Press by telephone from Kobani that two bombs were dropped over the village of Ali Shan, near Kobani at 6am (3am GMT).
Goran said however, that the strikes were ineffective and that the positions hit "were empty."
Turkey's Dogan news agency reported Saturday that the sound of heavy fighting could be heard from the Turkish border village of Karaca. The agency said Kurdish forces retook some positions it had lost to the Islamic militants a few days ago. It did not cite a source for the report.
The Observatory said the strikes in the east targeted compounds for the Islamic State group in the central province of Homs and the northern regions of Raqqa and Aleppo. The group said 31 explosions were heard in the city of Raqqa, the group's de facto capital, and its suburbs.
The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said the strikes in the east hit the province of Deir el-Zour as well as Raqqa. The LCC also said the coalition targeted wheat silos west of Deir el-Zour city.
It was not immediately clear why the silos were targeted. Saturday's strikes came after two days of strikes by the United States and its Arab allies on a dozen makeshift oil-producing facilities in Deir el-Zour, trying to cripple one of the militants' primary sources of cash - black market oil sales that the US says produce up to $2 million a day.
Near the capital Damascus, Syrian troops entered the once rebel-held northeastern suburb of Adra after days of clashes, Syrian state TV said. The advance came two days after troops captured the nearby Adra industrial zone.
Strikes fail to stop IS attacks
But the strikes failed to stop Islamic State fighters from pressing their assault on a strategic Syrian town near the Turkish border.
The US Central Command said the air strikes destroyed an IS building and two armed vehicles near the border town of Kobani, which the insurgents have been besieging for the past 10 days.
It said an airfield, garrison and training camp near the IS stronghold of Raqqa were also among the targets damaged in seven air strikes conducted by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, using fighter planes and remotely piloted aircraft.
Three air strikes in Iraq destroyed four IS armed vehicles and a "fighting position" southwest of Arbil, Centcom said.
Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the British-based Observatory, said 23 Islamic State fighters were killed. He said the heaviest casualties were inflicted in attacks on an airport.
But the monitoring group said IS was still able to shell eastern parts of Kobani, wounding several people. It said that IS fighters had killed 40 Kurdish militia in the past five days in their battle for Kobani, including some who were killed by a suicide bomber who drove into the town's outskirts in a vehicle disguised to look as though it was carrying humanitarian aid.
Britain fighter jet ready to join strikes
Also on Saturday, two British fighter jets were flying over Iraq and ready to hit targets, their first mission since parliament authorized strikes against Islamic State militants there, Britain's Ministry of Defense said.
Two Tornado jets left the British Royal Air Force's Akrotiri base in Cyprus at 7:25am GMT, followed minutes later by a refuelling aircraft, and returned more than seven hours later, a Reuters witness said. It was not immediately clear if they had carried out any strikes.
"We can confirm that ... Royal Air Force Tornados continue to fly over Iraq and are now ready to be used in an attack role as and when appropriate targets are identified," said a Ministry of Defense spokesman.
Saturday's sortie was the first time British aircraft have flown over Iraq in an armed role since Islamic State militants swept across large areas of the north of the country in June and declared a caliphate including land already seized in neighbouring Syria.
Six Tornado jets, normally based at RAF Marham in England, have been based on the east Mediterranean island since August. They have been engaged in intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance over Iraq for the past six weeks.
Britain retains two military bases on Cyprus, a colony until independence in 1960.
Reuters contributed to this report.
