Kurdish fighters enter Syria from Turkey to counter advance by Islamic State group

Syrian refugee children at the border in Suruc, Turkey, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014. Several thousand Syrians, most of them Kurds, crossed into Turkey on Friday to find refuge from Islamic State militants who have barreled through dozens of Kurdish villages in northern Syria in the past 48 hours. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

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A Syrian Kurdish refugee woman at the border in Suruc, Turkey, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014. Several thousand Syrians, most of them Kurds, crossed into Turkey on Friday to find refuge from Islamic State militants who have barreled through dozens of Kurdish villages in northern Syria in the past 48 hours. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

People offer water to a Syrian refugee at the border in Suruc, Turkey, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014. Several thousand Syrians, most of them Kurds, crossed into Turkey on Friday to find refuge from Islamic State militants who have barreled through dozens of Kurdish villages in northern Syria in the past 48 hours. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

BEIRUT – Activists say hundreds of Kurdish fighters are crossing into Syria from Turkey to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State militants.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and local Kurdish official Nawaf Khalil said Saturday that the fighters were streaming into the Kobani area in northern Syria.

Fighters from Islamic State group have been barreling through the Kobani area over the past week, seizing villages and forcing thousands of Syrian Kurds to flee.

Syrian Kurdish fighters had been successfully fighting off the militants for the past two years, but the tide has changed recently, leading them to call for Western aid.