ISIL closes in on border town with Turkey

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have closed in on a key Kurdish town in Syria, right next to the border with Turkey, prompting the government in Ankara to deploy tanks to protect its territory.

The news comes as activists reported early on Tuesday that US warplanes attacked ISIL in Syria overnight, killing at least two civilians as well as an unknown number of rebel fighters.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij, in an area controlled by ISIL.

Strikes on a building on a road leading out of the town also killed a number of ISIL fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the observatory, which gathers information from sources in Syria.

Earlier on Monday, activists told Al Jazeera that ISIL fighters were within five kilometres of Kobane, another town on the border with Turkey.

Intensified shelling in and around Kobane has angered Kurds on the Turkish side of the border, who said the government of President Recep Tayip Erdogan was not doing enough to stop the assault.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Turkish border, said mortar shells have landed in Turkey, but the Turkish military has so far refrained from responding, even as more tanks have been deployed.  

Our correspondent also reported that in some areas, ISIL positions were visible from the Turkish side of the border.

Turkish tanks have been sent to hills overlooking Kobane, while a US-led coalition intensified its bombing of ISIL in northern and eastern Syria.

At least 15 tanks were positioned, some with their guns pointing towards Syrian territory. 

Dekker added that shells hit at least three homes and a school in Ain al-Arab, a largely-Kurdish town known to its residents as Kobane. “There were no reports of injuries, as the targets were vacant,” she said.

More than 150,000 Syrian Kurds have streamed into Turkey since last week, as ISIL fighters pressed towards Kobane.

Airstrikes

Meanwhile, US-led coalition air raids targeted towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by ISIL. 

The observatory reported that 10 air raids targeted various parts of the province of Idlib, killing at least one child and six others, including five members of the same family.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the reports.

The purported civilian casualties would add to the 19 civilians that the Observatory says have already been killed in raids against the group.

According to Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Beirut, Zeina Khodr, anti-West sentiments are increasing as more civilians are killed.

An activist in an ISIL-held town, who asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera: “These air strikes are causing an economic crisis. Winter is around the corner and people need heating oil. Most of the oil facilities are not operational – even those which haven’t been hit because people are scared.”

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said that it had confirmed the deaths of at least seven civilians – two women and five children – from apparent US missile strikes on September 23 in the village of Kafr Derian in Idlib province. 

It based its conclusions on conversations with three local residents.

The US military said on Monday that an American air strike targeted ISIL vehicles in a staging area adjacent to a grain storage facility near Manbij, but it had no evidence so far of civilian casualties.

ISIL closes in on border town with Turkey