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03/28/2024 05:56:52 am

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‘No God Condones Terror’, Obama Urges World Leaders, Muslims to Fight Islamic State

U.S. President Barack Obama

(Photo : Reuters/Kevin Lamarque) U.S. President Barack Obama addresses world leaders and Muslim communities to join the campaign against the Islamic State at the 69th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 24, 2014.

U.S. President Barack Obama called on global leaders and Muslim communities to reject harsh Islamist ideologies like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, during his address at the annual UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

Obama urged all countries to mount a collective fight against religious extremism that threatens to cross Middle East borders soon two days after he authorized airstrikes against multiple Daesh targets in Syria.

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Daesh, an Arabic name for the Islamic State group, alludes to a term used for bigots who force their beliefs on others, must be degraded and destroyed, the president said.

The group has terrorized anyone they come across with in the regions they have overran, he said, as he enumerated the atrocities the Islamist group has done in the name of Allah.

Obama condemned the group using graphic language, saying it has raped women as a war weapon, murdered innocent children, dumped countless bodies into mass graves, forced religious minorities to leave their homes and persecuted or killed anyone who opposes their hard-liner Sunni extremism.

"No God condones this terror," Obama told the world leaders gathered in New York, adding that these horrific crimes are utterly unjustifiable.

The United States with 40 of its international allies are prepared to dismantle the Islamic State group which the president referred to as the "network of death." The only language understood by these brutal killers is the "language of force," he said.

Earlier this week, U.S. and five of its Arab allies sent aerial bombardments against Islamic State targets in Syria.

Other U.S. allies, including France and Australia, have also joined the fight against the terror group in recent weeks, leading to some 190 airstrikes across Iraq in the last six weeks.

Obama also used the speech to urge Muslim communities "to explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject" the violent ideologies of terror organizations. These groups' brand of terrorism has perverted Islam, a great religion of peace, he said.

By contesting their ideologies, by cutting off the funding that fuels their hate, by giving young Muslims an alternative to waging armed jihad, these organizations will "wilt and die," President Obama said.

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