At least 50 ISIS fighters killed in Syria’s Kobane

At least 50 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group jihadists have been killed in the past 24 hours in clashes, suicide bombings and U.S.-led air strikes in Syria’s Kobane, Agence France-Presse reported a monitor as saying Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described number of deaths as one of the highest daily tolls for the Sunni Muslim extremist group since it launched an assault on the strategic town on the Turkish border in September.

Meanwhile, a U.S.-led coalition on Saturday carried out at least 30 air strikes in Syria against ISIS in the northern province of Raqqa, the Observatory reported.

The air strikes hit ISIS positions in the northern outskirts of Raqqa city, a major stronghold of the hardline Islamist militants.

The areas hit by the strikes included the 17th Division, a Syrian army base that ISIS seized in July, the Observatory said.

In a related story, fighting between rebels and government’s forces continued in Aleppo, Syria's second city and former industrial powerhouse.

A Syrian woman and her three sons were killed overnight by rebel fire in the government-held side of Aleppo, the Observatory reported.

The woman and her children were killed when a homemade rocket fired from the rebel-held east of the city hit their home around midnight in the Ashrafiyeh district.

The Britain-based monitor said rebels were firing homemade explosive devices often using gas canisters that were even more damaging than regular mortar fire.

Aleppo has been divided between rebel control in the east and regime control in the west since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

Since the end of 2013, the Syrian air force has regularly dropped explosive-packed “barrel bombs,” which rights groups criticize as particularly indiscriminate, on the rebel east and surrounding province.

The barrel bomb attacks have killed several thousand people in Aleppo province, according to the Observatory.

In recent months, rebels have intensified their mortar attacks on the government-held west of the city, killing nearly 300 people in four months, the group said.

ISIS fighters killed in Syria’s Kobane

(With Reuters and AFP)