THE Syrian air force has destroyed two of three jets seized and reportedly test flown over Aleppo by Islamic State last week, according to the country’s information minister.

Omran al-Zoubi told Syrian TV late on Tuesday that Syrian aircraft bombed the jets as they were landing at al-Jarrah airbase in the eastern countryside of Aleppo province.

He said that the militants were able to hide a third jet, which the Syrian air force is now searching for.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) had reported earlier that Isis militants flew three MiG fighter jets over the al-Jarrah air base with the help of former Iraqi air force pilots who had defected. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Militant websites have posted photos of Isis fighters with warplanes, but it is unclear if they were operational.

The SOHR also reported that 30 Isis fighters and 11 Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (PYD) defenders were killed during an Isis offensive in the Kurdish city of Kobane on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Defence is investigating how one of its air drops of weapons for Kurdish forces defending the Kobane was captured by Isis forces besieging the town on the Turkish-Syrian border. 

The Pentagon claimed that the “vast majority” of the arms and medical supplies donated by Iraqi Kurdish authorities had reached Kurdish forces defending the city.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has rejected repeated Syrian Kurdish demands to allow weapons and fighters to cross through Turkey into the Syrian Kurdish enclave, although it has now agreed to allow Iraqi Kurdish forces to pass through its territory. 

US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Jakarta on Monday that while the Obama administration understood Turkey’s concerns, it would have been “irresponsible” and “morally difficult” not to support the Syrian Kurds in their fight against Isis.

Kurdish officials and doctors have said they believed Isis militants had released some kind of toxic gas in a district in the eastern part of Kobane.

A senior Kurdish official in the town said that the attack took place late Tuesday and that a number of people suffered symptoms that included dizziness and watery eyes.