MURSITPINAR, Turkey - Kurdish fighters halted a thrust by Islamic State group jihadists towards the heart of the battleground Syrian town of Kobane Saturday, after the UN warned thousands of civilians risked massacre.

The pre-dawn attack came after the IS militants overran the Kurdish headquarters in the border town on Friday, sparking fears they would cut off the last escape route to neighbouring Turkey.

But US officials warned that while world attention is focussed on Kobane, the jihadists have been piling pressure on government troops in neighbouring Iraq, leaving the army in a “fragile” position in Anbar province between Baghdad and the Syrian border.The renewed IS drive on the centre of Kobane sparked 90 minutes of heavy fighting with the town’s Kurdish defenders before the jihadists fell back, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.US-led coalition warplanes also carried out two air strikes on IS targets south and east of the town early Saturday, according to the Britain-based monitoring group, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.

US-led warplanes have intensified air strikes against IS, which has been attacking Kobane for three weeks, but the Pentagon has said that there are limits to what can be done without troops on the ground.

Small groups of Kurdish fighters were trying to harry the encircling jihadists with operations across the front line, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura warned Friday that 12,000 or so civilian’s still in or near Kobane, including about 700 mainly elderly people in the town centre, “will most likely be massacred” by IS if the town falls.

Kobane was “literally surrounded” except for one narrow entry and exit point to the Turkish border, de Mistura said.

“We would like to appeal to the Turkish authorities in order to allow the flow of volunteers at least, and their equipment to be able to enter the city to contribute to a self-defence operation,” he said.(AFP)