US President Barack Obama, who is seeking to mobilize international support to defeat the jihadists, is among the first leaders to address the General Assembly debate kicking off at UN headquarters.
Obama then chairs a special UN Security Council meeting due to adopt a resolution on stemming the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria, only the second time the US president leads a session of the top world body.
The threat posed by the Islamic State group prompted the United States to launch airstrikes in Iraq last month and on Tuesday, the operation was expanded to Syria.
Branded a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations, IS controls large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, and has beheaded two US journalists and a British aid worker.
The US military operation in Syria was supported by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan, prompting Obama to proclaim that the campaign against the radical Sunni fighters was “not America’s fight alone.”
At the special session chaired by Obama, the Security Council is to approve a resolution demanding that countries adopt laws making it a serious crime to join the jihad in Iraq and Syria.
The US-drafted resolution calls on all countries to “prevent and suppress” recruitment and all forms of assistance to foreign fighters, and would make it illegal to collect funds or help organize their travel.
About 12,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Syria and Iraq from 74 countries, in the biggest such mobilization since the Afghan war of the 1980s, according to the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR).
The overwhelming majority of foreign fighters — up to 75 percent — are from the Middle East and Arab countries, with Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Morocco topping the list.
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