A Syrian Kurdish refugee woman with her child wait after crossing the Turkish-Syrian border near the southeastern town of Suruc, in Sanliurfa province, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

US air strikes yesterday hit Islamic State targets around 140 km to the south of the Syrian town of Kobani in the militant group’s heartland of Raqqa, and on Saturday also hit sites to the east of the town.

However, the heavily-armed Sunni insurgents appear gradually to be forcing the Kurdish fighters back around Kobani, raising fears that the town may fall. Either way, the tens of thousands of refugees who have crossed the border in recent days may be in Turkey for a long time, aid workers say.

More than 150,000 Syrian Kurds have fled to Turkey over the past week to escape the advance of Islamic State militants, who have seized villages and beheaded residents as they push towards the strategic border town Kobani.

Turkey, already home to an estimated 1.5 million refugees from Syria’s civil war, is pushing the US and its allies to create a safe haven for refugees inside Syrian territory. A safe haven along the border would require a no-fly zone policed by foreign jets. President Tayyip Erdogan, until now reluctant to commit to a frontline military role in the US-led campaign against Islamic State, has said Turkish troops could be used to help set up such a zone.

Heavily-armed Sunni insurgents appear to be forcing Kurdish fighters back

“You’ve seen it in other places along the border. There’s no fighting anymore but people stay in Turkey,” said Umit Algan, who runs the relief effort in the border town of Suruc for IMPR, a Turkish aid organisation.

“I think it’ll be the same here, they never know when (Islamic State) might come back,” he said, adding that his group’s initial relief effort aimed to help refugees camping out in mosques, schools and parks for a month only.

Crowds of mostly Syrian Kurds cheered from the Turkish hillside as Kurdish shells kick up plumes of dust near Islamic State positions just across the border, but the next day the jihadists seized new ground.

The advance towards Kobani is the latest in a series of lightning campaigns by the Islamist group which have seen them seize swathes of territory in both Syria and Iraq.

The UN, which has warned that as many as 400,000 people could flee Kobani to Turkey, has said that the number of displaced makes the influx from the besieged border town the most serious yet of Syria’s civil war.

Many of those who have fled were from poor farming communities in the semi-arid terrain and were forced to leave their most valuable possessions behind – particularly livestock and vehicles.

“We have nothing here, nowhere to sleep. If they let us collect our cars, we can sleep in them,” said one Syrian Kurdish refugee, 60-year old Hussein Kadir Cumo.

Small crowds of Syrian Kurds gathered at crossing points along the border to plead with Turkish officials to be allowed to go back and collect their possessions, their vehicles tantalisingly visible through the barbed wire fence.

A steady stream of new refugees kept arriving, many of them herding cattle. Labour Minister Faruk Celik, who visited the border gate, was later quoted as saying the authorities would start to let livestock and vehicles cross.

Turkish military outposts occupy commanding positions on high ground along the border, the Islamic State front lines clearly visible below them.