DHAKA: US-led air strikes in Syria were reported to have killed more than 500 militants in a month, as fighting raged in the embattled border town of Kobane.

The air strikes have killed 553 people since their launch, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, including 464 IS fighters and 57 militants from Al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front.

Fighter jets were again heard flying over Kobane on Thursday, a media reporter said, a month after the US-led coalition expanded its aerial campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The town’s Kurdish defenders have been holding out against an assault by the ISIS militant group for more than a month, buoyed in recent days by a promise of Iraqi Kurd reinforcements and US air drops of weapons, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1824 HRS, OCT 23, 2014