BEIRUT: Kurdish fighters battled Islamic State group fighters Friday near a Syrian Kurdish town along the border with Turkey as Turkish prime minister said his country will prevent the fall of Kobani.

The Kurdish town and its surrounding have been under attack since mid-September, with militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages. The assault, which has forced some 160,000 Syrians to flee, has left the Kurdish militiamen scrambling to repel the militants’ advance into the outskirts of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria’s civil war, reported intense fighting Friday to the east and southeast of Kobani. The Observatory said seven Islamic State group fighters were killed in a village near Kobani.

Nasser Haj Mansour, a defense official in Syria’s Kurdish region, said the Kurdish militiamen repelled the latest attack by the Islamic State group east of Kobani.

Ismet Sheikh Hassan, the Kurdish defense minister of Kobani region, said Islamic State group fighters were trying to advance from the east, west and southeast of Kobani. He said jihadis fired rockets on the town and called on the US-led coalition “to hit the tanks instead of bases.”

The latest round of fighting over Kobani came after Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Turkey’s ATV television station late Thursday that his government does not want Kobani to be captured.

Davutoglu did not elaborate. His comments came after Turkey’s Parliament gave the government new powers Thursday to launch military incursions into Syria and Iraq, and to allow foreign forces to use its territory for possible operations against the Islamic State group.

On Friday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry warned Turkey that deploying troops inside its borders will be seen as an “aggression,” calling on the international community to “put limits to the adventures” of the Turkish leadership.

A day after Turkey's Parliament authorized military action against the IS group in Syria and Iraq, the Foreign Ministry said the "declared policy of the Turkish government represents a real aggression against a member state of the United Nations."

It is a "flagrant violation of the United Nations charter, which stipulates respect for the national sovereignty of states and non-interference in their domestic affairs," the statement added. "The international community and, in particular, the Security Council, should act to put an end to the adventures of the Turkish leadership, which represents a threat to world security and peace."

When asked about Davutoglu’s statement, Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria’s leading Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said: “How does he want to prevent the fall of Kobani and until now Turkey has done nothing.”

Khalil added that Kobani is now almost empty of civilians and that the situation around the town “is very dangerous.” He said Kurdish fighters in the town “will fight until the last gunman and last gunwoman.”