Fighting rages around Kobani

Intense shelling continued into Sunday around the besieged border town of Ayn al-Arab, more commonly called Kobane or Kobani, where Syrian Kurdish forces supported by US-led airstrikes are battling to hold back advancing "Islamic State" (IS) militants.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group which relies on a network of sources in Syria, the extremists have taken up positions to the east, west and south of Kobani, and had also succeeded in seizing part of a strategic hill overlooking the town late on Saturday.

The Observatory's head, Rami Abdel Rahman, told news agency AFP the southern part of the Mishtenur hill was now controlled by IS, with a battle for the rest of the territory still ongoing. If the jihadists seize the hilltop "the whole town of Kobani will be in their sights and it will be easier to take," he said.

Rahman added that 16 militants had been killed as the US and its Arab allies carried out fresh airstrikes on IS positions around Kobani overnight, while 11 Kurdish militiamen were killed in fighting. The Observatory also reported that the jihadists had fired several rockets, as well as tank shells and mortars on the town on Sunday.

The assault on Kobani, launched by IS in September as part of an attempt to wrest the area along the Turkish frontier from Kurdish control, has forced tens of thousands of refugees to flee across the border into Turkey.

Meanwhile, at least five people were wounded in a Turkish village on Sunday when a stray mortar fired from Syria struck a house close to the border, witnesses said. The victims were reportedly from the same family and weren't critically injured. Several others have been wounded in similar mortar strikes from across the border in recent days.

Family appeal

The extremist group IS has been accused of carrying out widespread atrocities in its quest to establish a "caliphate" on its territory, including mass executions, abductions and forcing women into slavery.

On Friday, the terror group posted a video online showing the beheading of 47-year-old British aid worker Alan Henning, who was taken hostage in Syria last December. Henning was the fourth Western hostage to be beheaded by IS, following the murders of David Haines, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. An Algerian group claiming affiliation with IS killed French tourist Herve Gourdel last month.

The latest video also included a threat to US aid worker Peter Kassig, who was abducted in Syria in October last year. On Saturday, his parents released a video message pleading with the Islamists for their son's release.

nm/msh (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)