Kobane: Islamic State battles to encircle Syrian Kurds

The Kurdish defenders of the Syrian border town of Kobane have held back advancing Islamic State fighters, with the US supplying air support.

The Kurds repulsed a pre-dawn attack and still control the town’s border crossing point with Turkey.

Correspondents say the crossing point is a vital supply and exit route.

The Pentagon reports that US planes have been bombing IS targets to the north and south of Kobane since Friday.

US and other aircraft from the international coalition also carried out air strikes on IS targets inside Iraq as well as dropping supplies to Iraqi government forces at Baiji, where Iraq’s biggest oil refinery is located.

In Iraq’s Anbar province, officials reportedly made an urgent appeal for military help against IS.

Haze and dustAs the sounds of battle continued on Saturday, haze and dust obscured Kobane, making air strikes more difficult but not impossible, the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville said in a tweet from the Syria-Turkey border.

The Kurdish militiamen have pushed back the latest IS advance but the militants are being easily resupplied from the south and the east and are able to launch further attacks, our correspondent says.

Amid the sound of gunfire, black plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the south and west of the town, another foreign journalist at the scene, Derek Henry Flood, tweeted.

According to the Pentagon, the new US air strikes on IS targets at Kobane hit an IS fighting position, damaged a command and control facility, destroyed a staging building; struck two small units of fighters; and destroyed three lorries.

Several hundred civilians are still believed to be in Kobane. UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has warned they could be massacred by IS if the town falls.

Smoke rises over Kobane on Saturday as seen from the Turkish border

The fresh gravestone of a Kurdish fighter buried near the Turkish town of Suruc, across from Kobane

Turkish forces are ranged on the border but have not crossed

An F/A-18C Hornet leaving the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush on Friday

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled over the border into Turkey

There have been protests across Europe in support of Kobane’s Kurds, including here in Duesseldorf

Images of jailed Turkish Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan could be seen at the rally in Duesseldorf

Since the IS offensive against Kobane began in mid-September, some 500 people have been killed and up to 200,000 have fled across the border into Turkey.

Mr de Mistura called on Turkey to allow Kurdish volunteers to cross into Syria with equipment “to be able to enter the city to contribute to a self-defence operation”.

Turkey has ranged its military forces on the border but has so far ruled out any ground operation on its own, and has refused to allow Kurds in Turkey to cross the border to fight.

Accusing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of inaction, Kurdish refugees from Kobane told Reuters news agency they feared they would be unable to return to their homes.

“If the United States helps us, we could return,” said one. “If the United States is willing to help, not like Erdogan, we could return today.”

At least 20,000 Kurds living in Germany have marched in the city of Duesseldorf to highlight the threat to Kurds in Kobane.

Air dropsUS and Dutch aircraft attacked IS targets near the towns of Tal Afar and Hit in northern Iraq, the Pentagon said in a statement.

In the operation in the Baiji area, food, water and ammunition were dropped to Iraqi security forces.

At least 14 people died in violence in Iraq on Saturday: four injured soldiers were killed when their ambulance was attacked in a “friendly fire” incident near Baquba while a suicide bomber killed at least seven people in a market in Meshahda, near Baghdad.

In Anbar, the provincial council asked for US ground troops to help fight IS, the Dubai-based Iraqi TV channel Al-Sharqiyah reports.

The vice-president of the council, Faleh al-Issawi, warned Anbar could “fall in 10 days”.

IS fighters control large stretches of territory in Syria and Iraq. The group is known for its brutal tactics, including mass killings, abductions of members of religious and ethnic minorities, and the beheadings of soldiers and journalists.

At the age of just 17, Malala is the youngest ever recipient of the prize.

The teenager was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls’ education. She now lives in Birmingham in the UK.

Malala said she was “honoured” to receive the award, saying it made her feel “more powerful and courageous”.

She revealed she found out the news after being called out of her chemistry class at her school in Birmingham.

“I’m really happy to be sharing this award with a person from India,” she said at a news conference, before joking that she couldn’t pronounce Mr Satyarthi’s surname.

The Nobel committee praised the pair’s “struggle against the suppression of children and young people”.

Mr Satyarthi has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, “focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain,” the committee said at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.

The 60-year-old founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save the Childhood Movement, which campaigns for child rights and an end to human trafficking.

Reacting to the news, Mr Satyarthi told the BBC: “It’s a great honour for all the Indians, it’s an honour for all those children who have been still living in slavery despite of all the advancement in technology, market and economy.

“Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai, has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education and has shown by example that children and young people too can contribute to improving their own situations,” he said.

“This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education.”

The committee said it was important that a Muslim and a Hindu, a Pakistani and an Indian, had joined in what it called a common struggle for education and against extremism.

Kailash Satyarthi, seen here making a film in 1996, has fought for the rights of child labourers

The view from Birmingham: Phil Mackie, BBC NewsWhen she opened the Library of Birmingham last year, Malala Yousafzai charmed the crowd by referring to them as “fellow Brummies”. It was a deft touch from a teenager who many believe is destined for a life in politics either here or in her native Pakistan.

She arrived in the city in horrific circumstances after surviving an assassination attempt and was treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine.

The expertise gained by medics who are used to patching up wounded troops from conflict zones, meant it was the best place for her treatment.

She remains an outpatient, and today the hospital trust praised her for her “remarkable recovery and fight to lead a full life as a vibrant and spirited teenager”.

This year’s prize is likely to be seen as an uncontroversial choice from a Norwegian Nobel committee which has not shied away from controversy in recent years, says the BBC’s Lars Bevanger in Oslo.

Norway’s relations with China are still suffering after a Chinese dissident won the peace prize in 2010, our correspondent adds.

Malala and Mr Satyarthi will now be invited to attend an award ceremony in Oslo in December to receive a medal and $1.4m (£860,000) pounds in prize money.

‘Pride of Pakistan’

Malala first came to attention in 2009 after she wrote an anonymous diary for BBC Urdu about life under Taliban rule in north-west Pakistan.