A suicide bomber rocked a Syrian Kurdish border town on Monday, shortly after an explosion killed at least 28 people just over the frontier in Turkey, a monitoring group said.

"A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint in Kobane's south... There were two Kurdish forces killed in the explosion," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He told AFP the explosion took place shortly after the blast in the Turkish town of Suruc.

Kobane has been a symbol of resistance against the jihadists since IS fighters were driven out in January.