IS FIGHTERS TARGETED BY NEW AIR STRIKES

                                        

The US-led coalition has carried out more air strikes to try to repel Islamic State (IS) militants attacking the Syria-Turkey border town of Kobane.

Reports says that the BBC's Paul Adams heard three raids in 30 minutes - and eight in total - on Tuesday, in support of Syrian Kurds.

However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned air strikes were not enough and Kobane was "about to fall".

At least 400 people have died in three weeks of fighting for Kobane, monitors say, and 160,000 Syrians have fled.

If IS captures Kobane, its jihadists will control a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

Separately, a Kurdish demonstrator has been killed in clashes with Turkish police in the town of Varto, news agencies say, as Kurds widen their protests against what they view as Turkey's inaction over Kobane.

UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the latest clashes in Kobane has seen IS cross into a southern district, taking over many buildings.

However, the Observatory said heavy fighting had forced IS to pull back from the eastern districts its fighters had entered on Monday evening. It also suggested many IS fighters had been killed in an ambush by Syrian Kurdish fighters.

The town is now besieged on three sides. A humanitarian mission to evacuate the few thousand civilians left in Kobane continued on Tuesday.