An air strike hit the Syrian town of Kobani on Sunday (November 2), as Iraqi Kurdish fighters battled Islamic State (IS) militants.
A large plume of smoke could be seen rising from the Syrian town shortly after the strike could be heard.
Iraqi Kurdish fighters joined the fight against Islamic State militants in Kobani, hoping their support for fellow Kurds backed by U.S.-led air strikes will keep the ultra-hardline group from seizing the Syrian border town.
Idriss Nassan, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in Kobani district, said Iraqi Kurds using long-range artillery had joined the battle on Saturday (November 1) night against Islamic State, which holds parts of Syria and Iraq as part of an ambition to redraw the map of the Middle East.
Nassan did not elaborate and it was not immediately possible to verify that progress against Islamic State had been made.
The arrival of the 150 Iraqi fighters -- known as peshmerga or "those who confront death" -- marks the first time Turkey has allowed troops from outside Syria to reinforce Syrian Kurds, who have been defending Kobani for more than 40 days.
Eyewitnesses in the Mursitpinar area on the Turkish side of the border from Kobani said two rockets were fired on Saturday night.
A Reuters witness said the fighting on Sunday was heavier than in the last two days, noting a strike in the late morning and the sound of three explosions.
Attention has focused on Kobani, seen a key test of the effectiveness of American air strikes, and of whether combined Kurdish forces can fend off Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot made up of Arabs and foreign fighters.
Air strikes have helped to foil several attempts by Islamic State, notorious for its beheading of hostages, to take over Kobani.
But they have done little to stop its advances, in particular in Sunni areas of western Iraq, where it has been executing hundreds of members of a tribe that resisted its territorial gains.
US, ALLIES CONDUCT STRIKES
U.S. military forces staged seven air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria on Saturday and Sunday and were joined by allies in two more attacks in
Iraq, the U.S. Central Command said.
In Syria, U.S. attack, fighter and bomber aircraft again focused on the Kobani area with five strikes that hit five small Islamic State units. Two strikes southeast of Dayr Az Zawr also destroyed an Islamic State tank and vehicle shelters, Central Command said.
U.S. and partner nations hit small Islamic State units near the Iraqi cities of Bayji and Fallujah.
REUTERS