Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani called yesterday for international intervention to protect a Kurdish town in Syria from Islamic State fighters who have driven many Syrian Kurds to flee across the border to Turkey.

Several thousand Kurds began crossing the frontier yesterday fearing an imminent attack on the border town of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani , after IS fighters seized dozens of nearby villages over the past two days.

“I call on the international community to use every means as soon as possible to protect Kobani,” Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the IS had seized three more villages near Kobani, bringing to 24 the number it had taken.

Esmat al-Sheikh, head of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani, said fierce clashes continued to the east, west and south of the city, which is bordered by Turkey to the north.

IS fighters armed with rockets, artillery, tanks and armoured vehicles seized from the Iraqi army in Mosul had advanced to within 20 kilometres of Kobani, he told Reuters by telephone.