THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The international world is all abuzz about friends, enemies and frenemies in the Middle East. We all know that IS is bad and Iraq is good, Turkey is our hesitant friend and the Kurds deserve our support. Or do they.

The villages are near the town of Kobani, known in Arabic as Ayn al Arab, one of the last major crossing points to Turkey not in Islamic State hands. The Islamists have been trying to seize the town for months and are now attacking from three directions, with tanks, machine-gun mounted Humvees and Grad rockets against nearby villages, said Idris Nassan, who holds the title of deputy foreign minister for the Kobani canton, the administrative district that includes not just the town but the villages that surround it.

Kobani’s Kurdish defenders had been expecting the assault after intercepting Islamic State radio communications. They evacuated at least 15 villages of all but their military-age male inhabitants before the offensive began Wednesday, he said.

Many of those villages are now under Islamic State control, he said.

Nassan, however, said that the Kurdish fighters, members of the People’s Protection Unit, which is known by the Kurdish initials YPG, may be setting a trap for the Islamic State militants. “Their morale is high,” he said of the YPG. “They have a new strategy. I think in the coming days, they will do something.”

Of all the battlefronts in Syria, the fight for Kobani may be politically the most complex. Both the Islamic State attackers and the defenders from the YPG, an offshoot for the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, are listed as terrorist organizations by the United States and other nations.

Nassan appealed for international military support, but that seems unlikely. Turkey does not want international aid to go to a force that in the past has mounted major guerrilla operations against Turkish military and civilian targets, and it reportedly has warned American officials not to take actions in Syria that would strengthen the YPG.

At the same time, Turkey, the United States and other countries have suspected that the YPG is working hand-in-glove with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces abandoned the region in the summer of 2012.

For their part, the Kurds say Turkey is working with the Islamic State, something Turkish officials have denied repeatedly. Nassan repeated the charge Thursday, accusing Turkey of providing logistical support to the extremists.

Whatever label is currently applied to the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, it has become at most a relatively minor threat to Turkey. Since March 2013, the two sides have been engaged in a peace process to end the 3-decade-long guerrilla war.

So, who do we support or bomb? Who do we arm? Maybe we should give unlimited arms to all and our hand to the last one standing.