U.S. pressed Turkey to play stronger role against IS

• Kurdish fighters engaged in fierce clashes with jihadists on the Turkish border near Kobane, as Washington pressed Ankara to play a stronger role in the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group.
• Turkey denied allowing the United States to use its bases against IS, after U.S. officials said access had been granted and that Ankara would also host training for “moderate” Syrian rebels.
• American and Saudi warplanes carried out seven new strikes around Kobane, the U.S. military said, including on ARE staging posts used in its bid to cut the town off from the outside world.
• A Kobane politician who is now a refugee said IS fighters had surrounded Kobane to the south, east and west, and warned of a “massacre” if they take the northern front bordering Turkey.
• Fighting spread to less than a km from the barbed wire frontier fence, with the jihadists carrying out two suicide car bomb attacks in the border zone, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
• With the jihadists advancing on its doorstep, NATO member Turkey has come under intense pressure to take action as part of the U.S.-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes in both Syria and Iraq.
• Iraqi forces are reported to be under intensifying pressure in Anbar province between Baghdad and the Syrian border, where a roadside bomb killed the police chief.