Shells land in Turkey near besieged Syrian town

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Four mortar shells landed in Turkey near the border with Syria on Saturday, injuring two people, as Islamic State militants clashed with Kurdish forces defending a Syrian border town, local officials and a Reuters witness said.

Islamic State launched an offensive to try to capture the border town of Kobane more than a week ago, besieging it from three sides. More than 150,000 Kurds have fled the town and surrounding villages, crossing into Turkey.

One of the mortars blew a large hole in an empty minibus parked near Tavsanli, a village close to Kobane.

Authorities in the border province of Sanliurfa have blocked the main road to the Syrian border as security worsens in the area, an official at the local governor's office said.

Early on Saturday, air strikes hit Islamic State and other Islamist groups in eastern Syria, a monitoring group said, as a U.S.-led coalition seeks to turn the tide against the militants who have captured swathes of Syria and northern Iraq.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 31 explosions were heard in the province of Raqqa, a stronghold of Islamic State, and casualties were reported.

It said warplanes also struck areas east of the desert town of Palmyra in Homs province and hit several IS checkpoints around the Kurdish town of Kobani close to the Turkish border.

Later on Saturday, a Reuters witness saw two British fighter jets leaving a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, a day after the British parliament authorized air strikes on Iraq.

The U.S.-led air campaign has yet to stop the advance of the Islamic State fighters on the town of Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, which has been under attack for at least 10 days.

"Today, they (IS fighters) have made advances on the western side of the town," Rami Abdelrahman of the Observatory said.

The United States is leading a military coalition including some Gulf and European nations to stop the advance of Islamic State, which swept across northern Iraq in June. The group has proclaimed a "caliphate" ruling over all Muslims, slaughtered prisoners and ordered Shi'ites and non-Muslims to convert or die.

The targets of the air strikes on Saturday included several military bases occupied by IS including Tabqa military airport, where many members of the group were killed, the Observatory said, without giving a figure.

REUTERS