Last week, Kurdish fighters watched helplessly from the Turkish side of the border with Syria, as the advancing forces of the Islamic State (IS) closed in on the city of Kobani, a stronghold of Syrian Kurds that the Syrian Army had abandoned leaving the Kurds alone to fend for themselves from the curse of the IS.

The Turkish government, involved in a 30-year struggle with its own Kurdish population, did not let the Turkish Kurds enter Syria to defend Kobani, and neither was it willing to send in its own army, the second largest force within NATO, to confront the IS. The sad truth is that many in Turkey would be happy to see the fighters of the IS and the Kurds kill one another.

This cynicism infuriated the Turkish Kurds, who protested in all the majority-Kurdish areas in Turkey in violent clashes with the Turkish police, leaving at least 37 dead. The US continues to press the Turks to allow it to use military bases in Turkey to attack targets in Syria and Iraq. Susan Rice, the National Security adviser of President Barack Obama announced on Sunday that Turkey had authorized the use of Incirlik base for attacks on Syria and Iraq. This was almost immediately denied by the Turks. Fortunately for the inhabitants of Kobani, the US and its Gulf allies were already doing bombing runs over the IS positions around the besieged city. These airstrikes — since Obama vowed that he was not going to put any more American boots on the ground in this conflict — are the only thing stopping a complete invasion of Kobani by fighters of the IS and a massacre of its inhabitants. The bombing campaign has now succeeded in pushing back the militants on several sides of the city.

In Iraq, the IS has made dramatic advances in Anbar province, taking control of almost all of it and coming within 25 kilometers of the international airport of Baghdad. This caused much alarm in certain sections of the western media, with dire estimates that the Iraqi capital would be the next target of the terrorists of the IS. But this writer thinks it is unlikely, since the capital has seven million inhabitants, with the Shiites in majority and is the seat of power of the Iraqi government. Security analyst Michael Knights wrote on Politico.com that the advance of the IS toward Baghdad shows the desperation of the group, which has suffered several setbacks in battles with Sunni tribes who are allying themselves with the Iraqi Army and accepting help from Shiite militiamen supported by Iran. Knights believes that the IS is preparing to launch attacks against Shiites marking Ashura during the Islamic month of Muharram, which this year begins on Nov. 3.

These pilgrims will walk from Baghdad to Karbala about 80 kilometers away, and so will be easy targets for mortar attacks, car bombs and suicide attacks.

On Monday, Obama met military leaders from 21 states in Washington to coordinate the military strategy. He warned that this fight was going to have ebbs and flows, and it would take years and not months to show any lasting results. This coordination is a very good strategy, but does not address the more sensitive issue of what to do in Syria with the regime of President Bashar Assad. The US and its Gulf allies do not want him to continue in power. Turkey also wants to see the end of the Assad regime, and is trying to link its possible military action against the IS to a US bombing campaign against Assad, something that so far Obama has proved very hesitant to do.

To muddy the waters further, some Syrian rebels are harshly criticizing the military action against the IS, saying that this has strengthened the Assad regime by taking out one of his opponents, leaving the regime more free to attack the rebels with the terrible barrel bombs that cause so much damage to the civilian population. They also accuse Assad of taking advantage of this situation to boast that he and his government are on the good side in this fight against the militants of the IS.

Meanwhile, the IS continues to shock the world with actions and pronouncements that justify the seizure and sale of property in Mosul of Christians, Shiites and even Sunnis who do not support them, and the sexual enslavement of women captured from the enemy. That should be a clear sign of the level of madness to which they have descended, and the huge distance from which they are from any fair and just version of Islam. They must think they are building the much-desired caliphate. Yet their bloody, horrible and unjust actions have left most of the world disgusted and shocked.

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The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.