Intensified air strikes have helped Kurdish militia push back Islamic State jihadists fighting for Kobane as pressure mounts for more international action to save the key Syrian border town.

Across the frontier in Turkey, the government’s lack of action against the jihadists was drawing a furious response, with at least 14 people killed in pro-Kurdish demonstrations in the southeast.

A new strike by the US-led coalition hit near Kobane early on Wednesday local time after a flurry of raids the day before.

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The strike sent a cloud of thick black smoke billowing from the eastern side of the town, where Kurdish militia were reported to have forced IS fighters out of several neighbourhoods in heavy overnight fighting.

The jihadists pierced Kobane’s defences this week, sparking fierce street battles that continued on Wednesday with the sounds of heavy gunfire and mortar shells falling on the town.

A Kobane official, Idris Nahsen, said fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) had managed to push IS militants out of key areas after “helpful” air strikes by the US-led coalition.

“The situation has changed since yesterday. YPG forces have pushed back ISIS forces,” he told AFP, using another name for the extremist group.

Armoured vehicles of the Turkish army patrol along the Turkish-Syrian border. Photo: Getty

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, also said IS fighters had withdrawn overnight from several areas and were no longer inside the western part of Kobane.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said the withdrawal came after coalition air strikes hit IS positions “causing casualties and damaging at least four of their vehicles”.

But he said the jihadists had launched a new assault on Wednesday in the east of the town, also known as Ain al-Arab, following their pull-back.

“There are fierce clashes underway in the east of Ain al-Arab after the Islamic State launched an offensive to retake the areas it lost control of,” Abdel Rahman said.

The Observatory said at least 32 IS fighters were killed in and around Kobane on Tuesday, including at least 20 in coalition air strikes.

It says about 400 people, more than half of them jihadists, have been killed in and around Kobane since IS began its assault in mid-September.

Washington and its allies have stepped up their air raids around Kobane in recent days, as the town became an important symbol of resistance to IS.

The group has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” and committing widespread atrocities.

Kobane would be a major prize for the jihadists, giving them unbroken control of a long stretch of Syria’s border with Turkey.

Amid warnings of Kobane’s imminent fall, the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, joined calls for the international community to take urgent action.

Washington launched its air campaign against IS in Iraq in August and last month expanded it to Syria with the participation of five Arab allies.

The Turkish parliament has voted to join the campaign but Ankara has yet to announce military action despite the advance of the jihadists on its doorstep.

Ankara has come under increasing pressure to act in Kobane but its response has been complicated by concerns over emboldening Kurdish separatists, who have waged a deadly insurgency in Turkey for the past three decades.

-AAP