Islamic State crisis: Kurds 'recapture key Kobane hill'
The advances were made after a series of air strikes by the US-led coalition.
The hill, Tall Shair, was captured more than 10 days ago by IS militants, who have besieged the area for a month.
Later on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama will hold talks with military chiefs from more than 20 countries on how to combat IS in Syria and Iraq.
Correspondents say the meeting in Washington is the first time such high-ranking military officials from so many countries have come together since the US-led coalition was formed last month.
In a separate development, Turkish warplanes on Monday bombed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebel targets in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, causing "heavy casualties", Turkish media report.
If confirmed, this would be the first major air raid by Turkey on the PKK since a ceasefire was reached in March in 2013.
Suicide bombings
The battle for Kobane, a predominantly Kurdish town, has emerged as a major test of whether the coalition's air campaign can push back IS.
Two weeks of air strikes against IS targets in and around Kobane have allowed Kurdish fighters to slow the jihadists' advance, but Turkish and Western leaders have warned that the town is still likely to fall.
On Tuesday morning sources in the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) told the BBC that they had regained control of Tall Shair hill-top, about 4km (2.5 miles) to the west and near an informal border crossing.
Heavy fighting was reported in the east and south of Kobane on Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, reported that IS carried out three separate suicide bomb attacks.
One IS suicide bomber blew up an explosives-filled vehicle in the north of the town, near the border, while the second targeted an eastern area where the main police station and government offices were located, it said. Later, a third bomber attacked a YPG position in the north-east.
The Observatory said it believed IS now controlled about half of Kobane.
Capturing the town, from which more than 160,000 people have fled, would give the group unbroken control of a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.
Key target
Meanwhile at least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed on Tuesday in fighting against IS militants in the oil-rich eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory said.
It reported that the fighting took place not far from Deir Ezzor military airport, one of the last government-controlled outposts in the province.
IS controls most of Deir Ezzor but parts of the provincial capital Deir Ezzor city - including the airport - are still in government hands.
Deir Ezzor has been a key target of air strikes against IS by the US-led coalition fighting against the jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
Elsewhere in Syria, two senior security officials have been removed in what rights groups and residents say is a response by the Syrian government to angry protests.
Pro-Assad loyalists were infuriated by the deaths of 41 children in a bombing in Homs city on 1 October.
BBC
