DHAKA: Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have closed in on a key Kurdish town in Syria, right next to the border with Turkey.

They prompting the government in Ankara to deploy tanks to protect its territory, reports Aljazeera.

The news comes as activists reported early on Tuesday that US warplanes attacked ISIL in Syria overnight, killing at least two civilians as well as an unknown number of rebel fighters.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij, in an area controlled by ISIL.

Strikes on a building on a road leading out of the town also killed a number of ISIL fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the observatory, which gathers information from sources in Syria.

Earlier on Monday, activists told Al Jazeera that ISIL fighters were within five kilometres of Kobane, another town on the border with Turkey.

Intensified shelling in and around Kobane has angered Kurds on the Turkish side of the border, who said the government of President Recep Tayip Erdogan was not doing enough to stop the assault.

BDST: 1006 HRS, SEP 30, 2014