Obama seeks Security Council meet on threat of 'foreign fighters' in terror groups

United Nations: US President Barack Obama will convene a Security Council summit on “growing and dangerous phenomenon” of foreign terrorist fighters, American envoy to the UN Samantha Power said on Wednesday.

The summit will be held on September 25, with attendance of heads of state and government, who holds the rotating council presidency for this month.

“We are seeing a surge in terrorist travelling from around the globe, specifically to fight in foreign conflicts. These fighters participate in brutal atrocities in the countries they travel to, and after return home radicalised by their experiences,” Xinhua quoted Power as saying in a press conference here.

Power added that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has accepted the invitation to brief the summit. “We will encourage international cooperation to prevent foreign terrorist fighter travel,” she said.

The Islamic State (IS) Tuesday released a video online that appears to show the beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff. The group had threatened to kill the American freelance journalist in a video posted online Aug 19, in which another American journalist James Foley was beheaded to avenge US airstrikes on the group’s targets in northern Iraq.

IS has recently claimed to have established an “Islamic Caliphate” in parts of Syria and Iraq, threatening the stability of the region.

The group, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said their goal is to establish an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria to fight the Shia-led Iraqi government and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose top ranks are from the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam.

The UN Security Council has recently adopted a resolution choking off the flow of fund and fighters to the militant group.

IANS