Kerry reaches out to Egypt in attempt to thwart Islamic State militants

Among the countries Kerry now has on board are Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including oil-rich rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Egypt yesterday pledged its commitment to what Washington has described as a "co-ordinated military campaign" against IS.

Speaking alongside Kerry yesterday in Cairo, Egypt's foreign minister, Sameh Shukri, said regional militant groups shared the same ideology and must be dealt with.

"Ultimately, this extremist ideology is shared by all terrorist groups. We detect ties of co-operation between them and see a danger as it crosses borders," said Shukri.

"We believe that rejecting terrorism is a collective responsibility of all members of the international community.

"There should be definite steps to achieve this target."

Kerry responded by stressing that Egypt, seen as the intellectual centre of the Arab world, has a critical role to play in countering IS's ideology.

The United States wants Egypt to use its leading Islamic authority Al-Azhar, a 1000-year-old seat of religious learning, to send a message of moderation across the Middle East to counter IS's extremist ideology.

"As an intellectual and cultural capital of the Muslim world, Egypt has a critical role to play in publicly renouncing the ideology IS disseminates," said Kerry.

Obama's plan to fight IS simultaneously in Iraq and Syria thrusts the US directly into the midst of two different wars, in which nearly every country in the region has a stake, alliances have shifted and strategy is dominated by Islam's 1300-year-old rift between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

IS is made up of Sunni militants, who are fighting a Shi'ite-led government in Iraq and a government in Syria led by members of a Shi'ite offshoot sect.

Even by the usual complex standards of Middle East politics, Washington faces a real diplomatic challenge in juggling both Iran and Saudi Arabia in combating IS.

To put this another way, the US faces working with Iranian proxies in Iraq and pro-Saudi actors in Syria.

Fearful at the prospect of Sunni-led IS militants gaining a permanent foothold inside Iraq, the Shi'ite government in Tehran has been providing weapons, intelligence and military advisers to Baghdad, and bolstering the myriad Shi'ite militias fighting alongside the beleaguered Iraqi military.

According to analysts at the respected US-based Foreign Policy magazine, the extent of Iran's involvement in Iraq was captured in a photograph of Major General Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force on the ground in the Iraqi town of Amerli.

From the photograph it was evident that Suleimani was actively involved in directing operations on the battlefield to break an IS siege of the town and prevent the slaughter of its inhabitants.

Like it or not, it seems that Washington will be working in close proximity to the Iranians in any effort to thwart IS ambitions in Iraq.

By contrast, when it comes to Syria, the Americans will have to court Saudi Arabia to influence other Syrian-based Sunni rebel groups to take the war to IS.

Yesterday, on the ground in Syria, there was yet more evidence of IS's strict interpretation of Islamic law in territories under its control.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, IS has destroyed several Sufi Muslim shrines and tombs in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zor. Sites affiliated with the Sufi sect, a mystical school of Islam opposed by puritanical Salafists from which IS draws its members, have been among the group's main targets.

The Observatory, which monitors Syria's conflict through a network of sources in the country, also said at least eight IS fighters were killed and more than 40 wounded in Syrian government air strikes targeting a training camp west of Deir al-Zor city.

While White House and Pentagon spokesmen have stressed that the US is now "at war" with IS, Secretary of State Kerry has appeared reluctant to use the term in a series of television interviews.

Kerry instead spoke of a "major counter-terrorism operation" as Washington expands its campaign against the jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

"The United States is at war with IS in the same way that we are at war with al-Qaeda and its al-Qaeda affiliates all around the globe," emphasised White House spokesman, Josh Earnest.

The coming months will reveal just to what extent the US is prepared to prosecute that war, and whether this time around it has any exit strategy and endgame in mind.