BREAKING NEWS

Kobani air strikes seen more accurate, Kurds give coordinates

US-led air strikes killed at least 32 Islamic State fighters in direct hits in Kobani this week because of closer coordination with Kurdish forces on the ground, a monitoring group said, after bombing of the Syrian town intensified.
Kurdish officials said the main Kurdish armed group, the YPG, was giving the coordinates of Islamic State fighters in Kobani to the US-led alliance that is bombing the group in both Iraq and Syria.
"The senior people in YPG tell the coalition the location of ISIL targets and they hit accordingly," Polat Can, a YPG spokesman, told Reuters, using an acronym for Islamic State.
"Some of them (ISIL) have withdrawn, but they regroup and return. But because the air strikes are working in coordination, they hit their targets well," he said.
The Kurdish YPG have been struggling to defend Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, from better armed Islamic State fighters who have used tanks, artillery and suicide truck bombs in a month-long offensive against the town at the Turkish border.
Islamic State has taken control of much of eastern and southern Kobani but has not made much progress this week. The Kurdish forces say they have taken back areas on the west of the town.
Islamic State, an al-Qaida offshoot, has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria in an effort to reshape the Middle East according to its hardline vision of Islam.
The U.S. military said the coalition conducted 21 attacks on the militants near Kobani on Monday and Tuesday and appeared to have slowed Islamic State advances there, but cautioned the situation remained fluid.