Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the Syrian city of Kobani is "about to fall" into the hands of the Islamic State militants, and that the U.S.-led coalition air strikes were not enough to stop the advance of the jihadist group.

Erdogan made his statement at a Gaziantep province camp near the Syrian border while addressing the Kurdish refugees. Aerial strikes alone were insufficient to stop the militants who were numbering to about 9,000 heavily armed troops, according to the Turkish president.

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"The problem of the Islamic State militants cannot be solved via air strikes," Erdogan said. "Right now, the city of Kobani is about to fall."

In addition, Erdogan said they already warned the West about what could possibly happen and had demanded three things from them: a no-fly zone, a safety zone parallel to the no-fly zone, and the training of Syrian fighters.

About 5,000 people could die as a result of the clash, Kurdish intelligence reports stated. At present, the number of deaths have already risen to 400 since the militant group began their advance in Kobani.

ISIS fighters attacked the south-western part of the city overnight and has taken control of several key buildings in Kobani to gain advantage in attacking position.

In an interview with Reuters, senior Kurdish official Asya Abdullah said the Islamic state militants were using heavy artillery and bombs to attack the city, which has been under siege for about three weeks already.

Abdullah said they fought hard to keep the extremists from getting inside the city, adding that "it was a violent clash yesterday."

If the militant group would succeed in seizing the city, they would be in control of a 62-mile swathe of land, from its self-declared capital of Raqqa all the way to Syria and Turkey.

TagsKobani, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Erdogan