ISIS facing deadly backlash in Syria?

The terror group ISIS has reportedly lost its control of the majority of Kobani, a border town in northern Syria which the militants have fought regional Kurdish forces over for months, according to an activist group and a Kurdish official.

Kurdish leader Idriss Nassan told the Associated Press that, with the help of U.S. and allied airstrikes, his fighters had wrested control of 80 percent of Kobani, and all of the key central zone where the police and other agencies are based.

"The advance has become faster and the airstrikes are more intense," he told the AP, adding that his fighters could control the whole city "hopefully within days."

Meanwhile, further south in ISIS' stronghold of Deir Ezzor province, at least three members of the group have been attacked in recent days under circumstances which suggest possible vigilantes.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group which relies on information from an extensive network of activists and informants on the ground in Syria, the decapitated body of one of the top figures in ISIS' pseudo police force was found in the town of al-Mayadeen, in rural Deir Ezzor province. His body bore signs of torture.

"We do not know whether Islamic State killed him or whether it was local people or other fighters," the Observatory's Rami Abdulrahman told the Reuters news agency, using ISIS' own name for the group.

Also in al-Mayadeen, another ISIS fighter was run over in an apparent deliberate hit and run attack, leaving him in critical condition. A third member of the group was attacked by two masked men on a motorcycle. He was repeatedly beaten with a metal stick on the head and sustained life-threatening injuries.

The rudimentary nature of the attacks in al-Mayadeen suggest they may not have been carried out by rival Syrian rebel groups, or ISIS itself, which has frequently executed its own members accused of betraying the group.

Across the border in western Iraq, meanwhile, ISIS claimed responsibility Tuesday for a suicide bombing targeting Iraqi security forces which left at least 23 people dead.

Local officials said the initial suicide blast was followed by a gun battle with ISIS militants, and that both state troops and Sunni tribal militia fighters were killed in the violence.