The black flag is torn down - VIDEO

Kurdish fighters captured the strategic hill of Tel Shair and pulled down the flag that had been fluttering for more than a week.It followed a sustained stepping up of the U.S.-led airstrikes, with locals counting more than 30 bombs dropped on jihadi positions in the past 24 hours. The battle for Kobani was raging today, taking place right in the town centre, just 100 yards from the border.Muzzle flashes from rifle fire were visible from windows and rooftops as the Peshmerga defenders and IS militants exchanged fire at close range.Fighter jets flying in pairs circled the rainy skies hunting for targets below.But more than two weeks of airstrikes by the coalition, aimed at rolling back the militants’ gains, appear to have done little to blunt their onslaught on Kobani, which began in mid-September.‘Over the past night there has been very intense airstrikes by the coalition that targeted several Daesh [an Arabic word for IS] positions in and near Kobane,’ said Idriss Nassan, deputy head of Kobani's foreign relations committee.One of the airstrikes targeted the Tel Shair hill where Kurdish fighters later brought the black flag of the Islamic State group. Its fighters control more than a third of the predominantly Kurdish town.A second hill, named Gania Kurda, has also lost its black flag, but this area is still under control of the jihadis.The fighting has forced more than 200,000 people to flee across the border into Turkey, and killed more than 500, mostly fighters from both sides.In the town of Suruc on the Turkish side of the border, dozens of Kurds from Kobani who are held by Turkish authorities at a sports stadium have gone on a hunger strike to protest their detention, activist Mustafa Bani said.Nearly 200 people, including women and children, from Kobani have been held in Turkey since last week shortly after they crossed the border, he said.(dailymail.co.uk)Bakudaily.Az