A Syrian Kurdish refugee carries her belongings after crossing into Turkey from the Syrian border town of Kobani. Photo Murad Sezer Reuters.

SURUC, Turkey — Turkey’s parliament authorized the government to order military action against “Islamic State” on Thursday as the insurgents tightened their grip on a Syrian border town, sending thousands more Kurdish refugees into Turkey.

The vote gives the government powers to order incursions into Syria and Iraq to counter the threat of attack “from all terrorist groups,” although there was little sign that any such action was imminent.

The mandate also allows foreign troops to launch operations from Turkey, a NATO member which hosts a U.S. air base in its southern town of Incirlik, but which has so far resisted a frontline role in the military campaign against the insurgents.

“The rising influence of radical groups in Syria threatens Turkey’s national security… The aim of this mandate is to minimize as much as possible the impact of the clashes on our borders,” Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz told parliament.

“Islamic State” fighters advanced to within a few kilometers of the mainly Kurdish border town of Kobani on three sides on Thursday, extending their gains after taking control of hundreds of villages around the town in recent weeks.

In neighboring Iraq, which also borders Turkey, the extremist militants have carried out mass executions, abducted women and girls as sex slaves, and used children as fighters in what may amount to war crimes, the United Nations said.

They took control of most of the western Iraqi town of Hit early on Thursday in Anbar province, where they already control many surrounding towns, launching the assault with three suicide car bombs at its eastern entrance.

U.S.-led forces, which have been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq, hit a village near Kobani on Wednesday. Sources in the town, which is known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, reported strikes further south overnight.

The U.S. Central Command reported that U.S. and other forces in the coalition had conducted four strikes on Wednesday and Thursday in Syria and seven in Iraq. Targets included buildings, tanks and other armed vehicles.

But such strikes seemed to have done little to stop the Islamists’ advance.

Kurdish militants in Turkey warned that peace talks with Ankara, meant to end a three-decade insurgency, would collapse if the Islamist insurgents were allowed to carry out a massacre.