Smoke from fresh explosions hovered above the skyline of the besieged Syrian-Turkey border town of Kobani today.

The latest blasts follow a relatively calm day yesterday in the area, where Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters have been clashing over the strategic Syrian town.

Kobani has been encircled by the Sunni Muslim insurgents for more than 40 days. Weeks of US-led air strikes have failed to break their stranglehold.

Iraqi Kurdish forces have blunted but not broken the siege of Kobani, a week after arriving to great fanfare with heavy weapons and fighters in a bid to save it from Islamic State.

Kobani has become a test of the US-led coalition's ability to halt the advance of the Sunni Muslim insurgents. The town is one of few areas in Syria where it can co-ordinate air strikes with operations by an effective ground force.

The arrival of the Iraqi Kurd peshmerga, or "those who face death," with armored vehicles and artillery, has enabled them to shell Islamic State positions around Kobani and take back some villages.

But the front lines in the town itself are little changed, its eastern part still controlled by the insurgents, and the west still largely held by the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, and allied fighters.