Last stand against IS by a few good men

The bullet on the front of Idris Kobane's battle fatigues was a chilling reminder of what was at stake for him and his fellow fighters.

The brass 7.62mm cartridge was intended not for use against the enemy, but on Kobane himself - to take his own life if the Islamic State jihadists surrounding his town seize it.

Standing next to his four-year-old son, he  said: "We won't leave our town until the last drop of blood. We will stay and fight until death or until victory.

"But I say to the world and countries like America and Britain, we need your help. We need heavy weapons. If you know the meaning of humanity, look at what's happening in Kobane, where so many civilians have been forced to leave."

For the past few weeks, the farming settlement where he lives in northern Syria, also called Kobane, has been on the brink of falling to the jihadists, who have in the past beheaded men captured during battle.

The mainly Kurdish town, which lies just inside the Syrian border, is one of dozens now on high alert after a major offensive by Islamic State fighters in recent weeks. That, and the accompanying tales of atrocities, prompted a mass flight of around 140000 Kurdish refugees across the border to Turkey.

Among these were many of Kobane's own residents, leaving the town inhabited only by a minority of volunteers against a vastly better-armed Islamic State army.

Kobane, 42, a construction worker who sports a glass eye, has been joined by other equally unlikely fighters, including a lawyer recently released from Islamic State detention after being beaten with electric cables, and Mohammed Hanif Osman, an elderly neighbourhood watchman.

Yet remaining inhabitants are not completely abandoned. Joining them last Friday were fighters with Turkey's Kurdistan Workers Party - outlawed as a terrorist group in Turkey - who said they were armed to combat the jihadists.

Late on Saturday, a salvo of US air strikes hit distant Islamist positions in the nearby villages of Marj Esmael and Alishar, less than 8km from Kobane.

But as night fell, the American strikes appeared to have had little effect as Islamic State forces continued to pound the Kurdish positions with mortar shells. In reply, the Kurdish forces offered only rifle fire, interspersed with occasional machine gun shots.

"It's our motherland and we won't leave it for any reason - even for IS ," said Waheed Asaid Ahmed, 35, sitting outside her home with her five children.

"We will hold out. The blood of our martyrs is no better than ours."