Kurds inflict 'heavy losses' on IS in Kobane, who continue to gain ground in Iraq

Islamic State (IS) militants met dogged Kurdish resistance Sunday in the high-profile Syrian battleground town of Kobane although in Iraq they put government forces under strong pressure, prompting US-led relief drops.

In north Iraq, around the key oil refinery town of Baiji, the Iraqi army and its Sunni Arab tribal allies came under fresh attack by IS, prompting a first resupply operation by coalition aircraft.

In Kobane, where IS is battling Kurdish fighters under the gaze of the international media just across the border with Turkey, the militants were taking heavy losses, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It said IS was pouring in reinforcements from Syria, after its Friday capture of the Kurdish headquarters in Kobane failed to deliver a knockout blow.

"They are sending fighters without much combat experience," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"They are attacking on multiple fronts but they keep being repulsed, then countering and being pushed back again."

IS has recruited thousands of foreign fighters but its reputation is on the line in Kobane according to Abdel Rahman.

"It's a decisive battle for them," he said.

"If they don't pull it off, it will damage their image among jihadists around the world."

Ban warning over 'massacre'

In Cairo on Sunday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged action to prevent a "massacre" in Kobane.

The UN has warned that hundreds of mainly elderly civilians in the centre and thousands more on the outskirts all risk being massacred if IS sever the sole escape route to the border.

The US military said Sunday that it and its Saudi and Emirati allies conducted four air strikes in Syria. All but one were in Kobane, where an IS fighting position was among targets destroyed. 

Despite the air strikes, Pentagon officials have said there is a limit to what they can do without forces on the ground to work with.

The Kurdish fighters in Kobane - who have links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) over the border in Turkey, which is on Washington's terror blacklist - say they have had no coordination with US commanders.

The US said it was deeply concerned about the humanitarian risks of Kobane's fal,  but said it would keep to its overall strategy against IS, which prioritises the campaign in neighbouring Iraq.

"We know there's the threat of serious casualties - that's why we're taking strikes in the Kobane area against (IS) targets," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told AFP.

"What [IS] is doing in Kobane shows just how brutal these terrorists are. But the fight against [IS] is a much larger strategic effort than in any one town."

That strategy has seen Washington and its coalition partners carry out hundreds of air strikes in Iraq in support of its allies on the ground - Kurdish forces in the north and embattled federal government troops farther south.