UN urges Russia, US to combat IS

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Russia and the United States on Sunday to cooperate in rooting out terrorism and said he would unveil a comprehensive plan to fight extremism and violence early next year.

United States President Barack Obama and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev separately called on all countries to coordinate and thwart the Islamic State group after its recent devastating attack on a Russian plane and on multiple targets in Paris.

Ban said he counted on their support to wipe out a common enemy and the United Nations was gathering ideas from members toward a joint counterterror strategy.

"All these terrorists and ideology extremists should be defeated in the name of humanity," he said during a meeting in Malaysia with Medvedev at the annual East Asia Summit.

"We need to unite. We need to show global solidarity to address ... the common enemy ISIL, Daesh, some other extremists and terrorist groups," he said, referring to the IS.

Obama at the same summit said Islamic State was "a bunch of killers with good social media" who would be thwarted by the US and its allies.

"Destroying (IS) is not only a realistic goal, we're going to get it done," he told a news conference.

"We will take back land they are currently in, take out their financing, hunt down leadership, dismantle their networks, supply lines and we will destroy them."

Obama said it "would be helpful" if Russia could direct its focus on tackling IS and he hoped that Moscow would agree to a leadership transition in Syria that meant its President Bashar al-Assad stepping down.

Medvedev said countries with large Muslim populations, including Russia, should unite to fight against IS and told a meeting of Asian leaders that should be done through institutions such as the UN.

"Terrorists have blown up a Russian airplane over the Sinai Penninsula. They've conducted a massacre at the heart of Europe," he said.

"These acts are atrocious. The whole world has shuddered."

He later told Ban: "We have to work together to fight Islamic State as a terrorist factor."