Fierce clashes took place on Tuesday overnight between Kurdish fighters and Takfiri group operating in Iraq and Syria, ISIL, for a strategic Syrian border town.

Fierce clashes took place on Tuesday overnight between Kurdish fighters and Takfiri group operating in Iraq and Syria, ISIL, for a strategic Syrian border town.

The “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” reported the event on Wednesday, saying that 10 people were killed in the clashes.

Nine Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and one ISIL militant died in the clashes around Ain-al-Arab on the border with Turkey, the London-based monitoring group said.

The Takfiris are just two to three kilometers (a couple of miles) from the town, known as Kobane in Kurdish, said the Britain-based Observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.

Their offensive, launched just over two weeks ago, has sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of mainly Kurdish refugees into Turkey.

Kurdish leaders have appealed to the US-led coalition to provide air support to the town's defenders.

But the Observatory reported no coalition air or missile strikes in the area overnight.

Ain al-Arab is a strategic town in which if seized if gives ISIL unbroken control of a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.