US military fighter and bomber planes carried out 14 air strikes against Islamic State targets near the Syrian border town of Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, the U.S. military's Central Command said. The air strikes appear to have slowed the militant group's advances, but "the security situation on the ground in Kobani remains tenuous," it said in a statement on Thursday.
Targets hit included 19 buildings, two command posts, three fighting positions and three sniper positions, it added. Stepped-up air attacks by US-led coalition in the past few days have stalled the advance of the Sunni militants on Kobani, a mainly Kurdish town on the Turkish border, according to a group monitoring the conflict in Syria. The Pentagon said on Wednesday the air strikes have killed several hundred Islamic State fighters around Kobani, but it cautioned that the town could still fall to the group, which has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria.
On Thursday, Central Command said the latest attacks were designed to disrupt Islamic State's reinforcement and resupply efforts and to prevent it from "massing combat power on the Kurdish-held portions of Kobani."
