WASHINGTON: US military forces again focused air strikes on the area near the Syrian city of Kobani in their campaign to turn back Islamic State forces and also hit oil facilities held by the militant group, the US Central Command said on Thursday.

A total of 15 strikes were staged against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a statement from Central Command.

The statement said US fighter and bomber aircraft staged four strikes near the key border city of Kobani, destroying an Islamic State control center and fighting positions in an area that has often been targeted this month, and two more that knocked out oil tanks east of Dawr Az Zawr.

Four air strikes by US and allied forces in Iraq near the vital Mosul Dam hit small Islamic State units and destroyed a vehicle while another attack near Bayji took out a fighting position. Four strikes in the Fallujah area targeted a training facility, a larger Islamic State unit and a building. All aircraft involved in the strikes returned safely, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the IS besieging Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq have killed a commander of forces from the Yazidi religious minority defending the area, a fighter said on Thursday.

The commander, Al-Sheikh Khayri, had returned from Germany, which has large Yazidi community, to fight, and was killed on Wednesday night, Khalaf Mamu told AFP by telephone.

“The humanitarian situation became very difficult because there is very little food,” while fuel was also lacking, he said.

Mamu put the number of fighters defending Mount Sinjar at about 1,200. The Islamic State (IS) group began a renewed push for the mountain on Monday after besieging it earlier in the year.

Some 300 of the militants with armored vehicles attacked and seized nearby villages and then turned their sights on the mountain itself, commander Dawud Jundi said.