MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) – The United States and Australia plan to put the issue of foreign participants in jihadist fighting in Syria, Iraq and other countries on the United Nations agenda, US Secretary of State John Kerry was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse on Tuesday.
"We intend to join together in order to bring this to the United Nations meeting this month and put it on the agenda in a way that will elicit support from the source countries as well as those countries of concern," AFP quoted Kerry as saying.
The US state secretary discussed the issue of foreigners joining Islamic State (IS) jihadists with Australian officials in Sydney. The issue was brought up after images of an Australian boy holding the severed head of a soldier in Syria appeared on Twitter, AFP reported.
Australia and the United States have now agreed to "work together to assemble a compendium of the best practices in the world together regarding those foreign fighters," Kerry said, AFP reported.
IS, a Sunni militant group previously known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS), has been fighting in Syria against the country’s president, Bashar Assad. IS launched an offensive in Iraq in June, taking over large parts of the country, with the goal of seizing Baghdad.
Also in June, the group announced the establishment of a caliphate on the Iraq-Syria border. The Islamist caliphate includes regions with Christians and other religious minorities.
