(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Kurdish fighters battled the Islamic State group in northern Syria yesterday, after President Barack Obama said the US-led coalition was intensifying air strikes against the militants in the conflict-riven country.
The Kurds are trying to repel a major offensive which the extremist group launched on Monday against villages in the northern provinces of Raqa and Hasakeh.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 80 IS fighters had been killed since Sunday morning in the fighting and US-led air strikes.
Obama said on Monday night the coalition fighting the militant group-also known as ISIL-would step up its campaign in Syria, while cautioning a long battle remained.
"We're intensifying our efforts against ISIL's base in Syria. Our air strikes will continue to target the oil and gas facilities that fund so much of their operations," he said.
"This is a long-term campaign," the US president said.
Obama said more than 5,000 air strikes had been carried out against the group, eliminating "thousands of fighters, including senior ISIL commanders".
In recent days, the coalition has bombarded IS in a series of heavy raids, particularly targeting its de facto Syrian capital Raqa.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said the raids were intended to help Kurdish forces, who have been a leading ground force partner for the American-led coalition in Syria.
In January, Kurds secured the symbolic town of Kobane on the border with Turkey after four months of IS attempts to overrun it.
And in recent weeks, they recaptured the key town of Tal Abyad, depriving IS of a conduit through which it transported weapons and fighters.
But IS has fought back with its offensive in parts of Raqa and Hasakeh provinces.
The Observatory said the militants took the town of Ain Issa, 55km from Raqa, but Kurdish officials and activists said the extremists had been repelled.
The Kurds also reclaimed more than 10 villages in Raqa and Hasakeh that were briefly overrun during the IS offensive, the Observatory said.
"The coalition aircraft have played an effective role in the recapture," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding heavy fighting continued in the two provinces.
Elsewhere, the Observatory said six children were among at least nine people killed in regime strikes on the Naseeb area in the southern province of Daraa.
And dozens of families fled the IS-held town of Palmyra after regime planes launched some 90 air raids in less than 48 hours.
The Observatory said the aerial bombardment, which killed five people but did not affect Palmyra's historic ruins, was the most intense against the town since IS captured it on May 21.
The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, meanwhile, said it feared one of its priests had been kidnapped, possibly by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front, in the northwestern province of Idlib.
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