An official for the main Syrian Kurdish force says Iraqi peshmerga fighters are getting ready for the battle against Islamic State group extremists in the border town of Kobani.

A vanguard force of Iraqi peshmerga troops entered the embattled Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey on Thursday, part of a larger group of 150 fighters that the Kurds hope will turn back an offensive by militants of the Islamic State group.

Iraqi peshmerga troops were cheered Wednesday by fellow Kurds in southeastern Turkey as the fighters slowly made their way toward the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani to try to break a siege there by Islamic State militants.

A Syrian activist group said Sunday that the death toll in 40 days of fighting in and around the northern Syrian border town of Kobani has reached 815, as Kurdish fighters battled Muslim militants for a hill west of the town.

Fighters from the Islamic State group launched Saturday a new offensive on the northern Syrian town of Kobani after shelling the area from their positions nearby, activists and a Kurdish official said.

Activists claim U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria have killed more than 500 people, mainly Islamic militants, since they began last month.

A US-led coalition airstrike on a gas distribution facility in a stronghold of the Islamic State group set off a series of secondary explosions and killed at least eight people in eastern Syria, activists said Saturday.