Kurdish forces blocked a road Islamic State (IS) militants use to resupply their forces in a Syrian town on the Turkish border, a town official and a monitoring group said on Wednesday, the first major gain against the jihadists after weeks of violence.

Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga forces crossed into Kobane on October 31 to help the besieged Kurdish YPG and YPJ fighters in the town. The combined forces have now cut off the road which leads southeast to the village of Hilnij, the sources said.

Despite having limited strategic significance, the battle in Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, has become a powerful symbol in the fight against IS. The hard-line Sunni Muslim group has captured large expanses of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic “caliphate”.

Idris Nassan, a local official in Kobane, said by telephone that anti-IS forces had taken the strategic hill of Mistanour and the road which runs along the side of the hill.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Kurdish forces had not taken Mistanour hill but had started fighting on the road to Hilnij, preventing IS fighters from using it to resupply.

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga have helped forces in Kobane take some villages around Kobane but the lines of control in the town remain the same.

The town has become a test of the U.S.-led coalition’s ability to halt the advance of the hard-line insurgents. It is one of the few areas in Syria where it can coordinate air strikes with operations by an effective ground force.

Reuters