US- led air strikes hit Kobani

US- led air strikes hit Islamic State positions around the Syrian border town of Kobani Friday in an apparent bid to pave the way for heavily-armed Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to enter from neighboring Turkey.
The predominantly Kurdish town, besieged for more than 40 days, has become the focus of a global war against the Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have captured expanses of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic "caliphate" straddling the two.
Its fighters have killed or driven away Shi'ite Muslims, Christians and other communities who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam. They executed at least 220 Iraqis in retaliation against opposition to their takeover of territory west of Baghdad this week.
The siege of Kobani, known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab, has turned into a test of the U.S.-led coalition's ability to stop Islamic State's advance, with weeks of air strikes so far failing to break the insurgents' stranglehold, according to a news agency.