Kurdish militia have fought off a fresh assault by the Islamic State group on a key Syrian town, after one desperate woman defender carried out a suicide attack against the jihadists.
IS militants attempted to storm the town of Kobane on the Turkish border from both east and west of a strategic hill to the south, but Kurdish fighters repulsed the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.
A Syrian Kurdish official inside Kobane said the town had come under heavy bombardment by the jihadists and there had been fierce clashes as the Kurdish fighters fought off the assault.
IS fighters seized part of Mishtenur Hill, which overlooks Kobane, late on Saturday, but US-led air strikes slowed their advance.
The Syrian Kurdish official, Idris Nahsen, said IS fighters were just one kilometre from the town and that air strikes alone were not enough to stop them.
In a sign of the Kurdish defenders' mounting desperation, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at an IS position east of Kobane on Sunday, the Observatory said.
It was the first reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter employing a tactic often used by the jihadists, said the Britain-based watchdog, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
The bomber, in her 20s, was a full-time fighter with the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish rebel group, which - like its ally in Turkey the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party - has a large number of women under arms.
The group identified her as Dilar Gencxemis, alias Arin Mirkan, from the Kurdish-controlled town of Afrin in northwestern Syria.
"She killed dozens of gang members and demonstrated the YPG fighters' determined resistance," it said in a statement carried by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.
"If necessary, all YPG fighters will follow her example, and the gangs will not be allowed to achieve their aim of taking Kobane," it added.
Sunday's fighting around Kobane - also known as Ain al-Arab - killed at least 19 Kurdish fighters and 27 IS jihadists, the Observatory said.
Under assault by IS for nearly three weeks, the town has become a crucial battleground in the international fight against the jihadists, who sparked further outrage at the weekend with the release of a video showing the beheading of Briton Alan Henning.
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