Voicing America's resolve to wipe out "apocalyptic cult" like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, President Barack Obama today said safe havens for terrorists will not be tolerated and called on Muslims worldwide to reject those who "distort Islam, to preach intolerance, and promote violence."
"...When a terrorist group beheads captives, slaughters the innocent and enslaves women, it's not a single nation's national security problem, that is an assault on all of our humanity," Obama said in his penultimate address to the General Debate of the 70th UN General Assembly in New York.
There is "no room for accommodating an apocalyptic cult like ISIL and the US makes no apology for using our military as part of a broad coalition to go after them," he reaffirmed.
"We do so with a determination to ensure that there will never be a safe haven for terrorists who carry out these crimes. And we have demonstrated over more than a decade of relentless pursuit of al-Qaeda, we will not be outlasted by extremists," he said.
Obama said that ISIL, which also goes by its other acronym ISIS, emerged out of the chaos in Iraq and Syria and "depends on perpetual war to survive."
ISIS and other terror outfits gain "adherence" because of a "poisonous ideology" and underscored that rejection of ISIS's distortion of Islam by Muslims across the world will go a long way in crippling the terror ourfit, he said.
"So part of our job together is to work to reject such extremism that infects too many of our young people.
"Part of that effort must be a continued rejection by Muslims of those who distort Islam, to preach intolerance, and promote violence. And it must also involve a rejection by non-Muslims of the ignorance that equates Islam with terror."
Obama acknowledged that there are no "easy answers" to Syria and no "simple answers" to the changes that are taking place in the much of the Middle East and North Africa.
He outlined US efforts to increase the number of refugees it takes within its borders.
"And today, we are launching new efforts to ensure that our people, and our businesses, our universities, and our NGOs can help as well," he said.
"Nowhere is our commitment to international order more tested than in Syria" and the US is willing to work with Russia and Iran to resolve the conflict, he said.
"We must recognise that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the pre-war status quo," he said.
While realism dictates that compromise will be required to end the fighting and stomp out ISIS, realism also requires a managed transition away from Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad into a new leader and an inclusive government that recognises there must be an end to the chaos so that the Syrian people can begin to rebuild, he said.
Image: US President Barack Obama addresses attendees during the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York, September 28, 2015. Photograph: Mike Segar/ Reuters
