MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) -- New U.S.-led airstrikes near the Syrian border town of Kobani have helped Kurdish fighters push back the Islamic State group a day after it appeared on the verge of seizing the town, the fate of which has emerged as a key test of whether coalition air power can roll back the extremist group.<br />
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The new wave of airstrikes came as several Syrian human rights groups called on the world to save the embattled town from falling into the hands of the Islamic State group, whose fighters have broken through Kurdish defenders' front lines and entered parts of the town over the last two days.<br />
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The U.S.-led coalition has launched a series of strikes aimed at preventing the extremist group from seizing Kobani. An activist group said the strikes killed at least 45 Islamic State militants since late Monday, forcing the group to withdraw from parts of the town.<br />
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"The airstrikes have helped. They were good strikes but not as effective as we want them to be," said Idriss Nassan, deputy head of Kobani's foreign relations committee. "Kobani is still in danger and the airstrikes should intensify in order to remove the danger."<br />
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"They (militants) have retreated inside the city because of the airstrikes and because of the ambushes that members of the People's Protection Units carried out, killing many of Daesh's fighters," he said, referring to the main Syrian Kurdish militia and using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.<br />
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Over the past few days thousands of Islamic State fighters armed with heavy weapons looted from captured army bases in Iraq and Syria managed to push into parts of the town, which is located on the Syria-Turkish border and is also known by the Arabic name of Ayn Arab.<br />
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The Islamic State group has tightened the noose around Kobani since mid-September, when it launched a blitz in which it captured several nearby Kurdish villages and brought Syria's civil war yet again to Turkey's doorstep.<br />
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The fighting has forced at least 200,000 town residents and villagers from the area to flee across the nearby frontier into Turkey. Activists say more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting.
