UN approves resolution urging action against Islamic State

United Nations: The UN Security Council unanimously approved a French-sponsored resolution calling on all nations to redouble and coordinate action to prevent further attacks by Islamic State terrorists and other extremist groups.

The resolution says the Islamic State group "constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security" and expresses the council's determination "to combat by all means this unprecedented threat."

The measure is the 14th terrorism-related resolution adopted yesterday by the UN's most powerful body since 1999.

It was adopted a week after violent extremists launched a coordinated gun and bomb assault that killed 130 people in Paris which the Islamic State claims it carried out.

It also comes eight days after twin suicide bombings in Beirut killed 43 people, and three weeks after a Russian airliner crashed over Egypt's Sinai peninsula killing all 224 people on board both attacks also claimed by IS.

The resolution "unequivocally condemns in the strongest terms" these and earlier "horrifying terrorist attacks" carried out by the Islamic State this year in Sousse, Tunisia and Ankara, Turkey.

The resolution calls on UN member states "that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures" against the Islamic State group and all other violent extremist groups "to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria."

This does not constitute an authorisation for military action, however, because the resolution is not drafted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which is the only way the United Nations can give a green light to the use of force.

The resolution urges UN member states "to intensify their efforts to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters in Iraq and Syria and to prevent and suppress the financing on terrorism."

In September 2014, US President Barack Obama chaired a Security Council meeting where members unanimously adopted a resolution requiring all countries to prevent the recruitment and transport of would-be foreign fighters preparing to join terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State group.

In February, the council adopted a resolution aimed at tightening its crackdown on financing terrorist groups through illicit oil sales, trading in antiquities and paying ransom for hostages.