IS launches fresh assault

• Oz fighter vows to hoist IS flag on White House, Buckingham Palace
• Iran President pledges to back Iraq amid attacks

Mursitpinar: The Islamic State launched a fresh assault on Kobane late on Monday hours after it was announced that Kurds, who are defending the besieged Syrian border town, had received a first US airdrop of weapons.

The jihadists had launched an assault "on all fronts of the city," Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group told AFP.

There were reports of heavy fighting in Kobane in the evening. The assault followed two suicide attacks in the north of Kobane earlier on Monday, in an apparent bid to cut the town off from Turkey.

And jihadists also sent in reinforcements from Jarabulus to the west of Kobane, as shelling of the centre of town resumed towards the end of a relatively calm day. It came as IS appeared to have opened up another front in Iraq with an attack on the Kurdish-controlled town of Qara Tapah that killed 10 people and sparked an exodus of half its population of 9,000.

"We are afraid IS will encircle us and turn this town into a second Amerli," said a resident of Qara Tapah who gave his name as Haidar, in reference to a majority Turkmen Shiite town farther north that was besieged by IS for two months. The renewed fighting came after increased activity on the diplomatic front.

Meanwhile, British drones deployed to counter Islamic State jihadists in Iraq will also be used for surveillance over Syria, the government in London said. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised that Iran will stand by Iraq in the neighbouring country's fight against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group. Rouhani told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Heidar al-Abadi that Iran "will remain on the path until the last day," according IRNA news agency. Rouhani says Iran will continue to provide Baghdad with military advisers and weapons. He also criticised the US for allegedly failing to sufficiently support Iraq against an escalating Sunni insurgency.

Continuing its practice of threatening the Western countries by sending audacious messages in videos, the extremist group of Islamic State has made online a fresh video, in which an Aussie IS fighter has directly trained its guns on US, UK and Australia.