Jonathan Krohn

Special for USA TODAY

SURUC, Turkey — The battle for control of the Syrian border town of Kobani has become a spectator sport of sorts for some Kurds on the Turkish side of the border. Dozens of people spend the day sitting on the hills outside Suruc, scouring the skyline for signs of the fighting.

On Thursday, as soon as a jet flew overhead, a murmur ran through the crowd. Those with binoculars followed the plane circling Kobani, hoping to see another airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition like the one they saw in the morning.

Then the plane left, only to come back soon to repeat the cycle, much to the annoyance of these Kurdish viewers in Turkey hoping to see more bombings against the Islamic State militants.

Idris Nassan, the deputy foreign minister for the Kurdish-run Kobani province in Syria, told USA TODAY that he went to the hills Thursday morning and saw the U.S. bombing around Kobani.

"They hit my home," he said, though he didn't know for sure his actual house was hit. "They struck my home, but I am happy." He hopes strikes like these could help bring the fighting to a favorable conclusion soon by defeating the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

The back and forth between the Islamic State and Kurdish fighters has gone on for several weeks now, worrying the international community as the militant group moves closer to the Turkish border.

Should the Islamic State take control of Kobani, it will have significantly consolidated around the Aleppo province, as the militants continue to make a push for Syria's second-largest city, Aleppo.

But the battle doesn't seem to be drawing to a close anytime soon. The U.S. Central Command said Thursday that Kurdish forces still control most of Kobani and are holding out in street battles against the Islamic State, as airstrikes continued.

"The west side of the town is stalling," said Anwar Muslim, president of the Kobani government who is currently inside the city. He claimed that while fighting was heavy on the east side on Thursday, and some activity had occurred in the west, the Islamic State controls only about 15% to 25% of Kobani.

"A lot of the smoke you see is from (the Islamic State) burning tires," Muslim explained, noting this was presumably to obfuscate the militant positions from the planes overhead.

Muslim also claimed that Islamic State leaders in the city of Raqqa have begun to recruit reinforcements for battle. It's unclear how Muslim knows this, but he said the Islamic State leadership has told reinforcements to go to Kobani "to reap the spoils," rather than telling them they are actually going to the front lines of fighting.

The relative ambivalence of the Turkish government to join the fighting to help Kobani, meanwhile, draws criticism from Kurds across the country. Protests from the Kurdish region in southern Turkey to as far north as Istanbul seek to bring awareness to the siege along the border. Counterprotesters and police have reacted violently.

What's more, since the fighting began in Kobani, many Kurds on the Turkish side say they are repeatedly stopped by Turkish police and military and tear-gassed and forced to move back from crossing the border to Kobani to join Kurdish fighters.

Haider Polat, 60, was one such volunteer. Now he sits atop one of the hills watching the battle and pours tea into paper cups from his portable tea kettle. Polat's son, Ali Polat, 25, is a volunteer fighter with the Kurds in Kobani. He left three months ago for Syria, and Polat hasn't heard from him since.

Behind Polat sits another hill, hosting a Turkish tank unit that quietly watches the crowd of enthralled Kurds. "They are here for us, not IS (the Islamic State)," Polat said, "They are here to scare us."