Mursitpinar, Beirut: US-led air strikes killed at least 32 Daesh 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 Daesh 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 Daesh targets and they hit accordingly,” Polat Can, a YPG spokesman, said.

“Some of them [Daesh] have withdrawn, but they regroup and return.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 has been struggling to defend Kobani, also known as Ain Al Arab, from better armed Daesh fighters who have used tanks, artillery and suicide truck bombs in a month-long offensive against the town at the Turkish border.

Daesh 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.

Daesh, an Al Qaida offshoot, has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria in an effort to reshape the Middle East.

21 attacks

The US military said the coalition conducted 21 attacks on the militants near Kobani on Monday and Tuesday and appeared to have slowed Daesh advances there, but cautioned the situation remained fluid.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war using a network of sources on the ground, said one of the allied air strikes in the last day killed a group of Daesh fighters just 50 metres from a Kurdish position.

Rami Abdul Rahman, who runs the Observatory, said seven Daesh fighters had been killed in clashes with the Kurds on Wednesday, compared to five Kurdish fighters.

“[The air strikes] are more serious than before because the coordination has grown in the last six days,” Abdul Rahman said.

The Syrian Kurds on Saturday voiced concern that the air strikes had become less effective and urged more.

Abdul Rahman Gok, a journalist inside Kobani, said the latest air strikes had allowed the YPG to make some gains.

“Following the air strikes I went to the last safe point in eastern side of the city. Some buildings that were occupied by Daesh fighters were empty,” he said. “On the west, YPG destroyed a vehicle that belonged to Daesh and killed the militants inside.” Turkey has rejected requests by the Syrian Kurds for it to open a corridor so they can resupply Kobani with fighters and weapons from other Kurdish areas of northern Syria.

The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq has sent ammunition and mortar shells to help the Kurds in Kobani, but the weapons are stuck in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria because they have no way to reach the town.

Kobani is besieged from the east, south and west by Daesh, meaning the Turkish border or an air drop are the only way for them to get supplies without penetrating Daesh’s blockade.

Turkey’s policy towards Kobani has angered Kurds in Turkey who accuse Ankara of supporting Daesh in its campaign against the Syrian Kurds, who have carved out three autonomous areas in northern Syria since the civil war began there in 2011.

Anger at Turkish policy triggered riots among Turkey’s 15 million Kurds last week in which at least 35 people were killed.

The main Syrian Kurdish party, the PYD, has close ties to the PKK, a Turkish Kurdish party that waged a militant campaign for Kurdish rights and has threatened to abandon a peace process with Turkey in response to the Kobani crisis.

Turkish warplanes were reported on Tuesday to have attacked Kurdish rebel targets in southeast Turkey after the army said it had been attacked by the PKK, risking reigniting a three-decade conflict that killed 40,000 people before a ceasefire was declared two years ago.