Top officials from 21 countries, including Australia, have kicked off talks in London on pushing back Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and tackling the growing threat of homegrown jihadists in Europe.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond co-hosted talks involving 21 of about 60 countries that are working together to tackle the militant IS group based in Syria and Iraq.
It will be the first time the US-led coalition has met since this month's attacks in Paris against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket that left 17 people dead.
"Terrorists want to drive us apart, but in fact their actions have had the opposite effect, they're bringing us together," Kerry said on Thursday ahead of the talks.
He also called for international action on "the root causes, so that terrorist appeals fall flat and foreign recruits are no longer enticed to go to a place and wreak havoc on it."
A US state department official said foreign fighters would be a "real focus" of the meeting and that an expert working group would be formed on sharing information to stop militants travelling.
Twelve people were killed in a shooting at Charlie Hebdo this month by gunmen affiliated with Al-Qaeda, while a third attacker who shot dead a policewoman and attacked a Jewish supermarket, killing four, claimed he was working on behalf of IS.
The attacks rekindled fears about the dangers posed by well-trained homegrown jihadists returning from foreign battlefields.
European police agency Europol estimates up to 5,000 EU citizens have gone to join the ranks of militants in Syria and Iraq.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the attacks in France "were a little bit like our own 9/11", hitting at "symbols of our culture, of our values, like the media freedom, the police, the Jewish community".
Meanwhile, Belgian authorities were still hunting for two men on the run after police broke up a jihadist cell last week, while French authorities charged four men with helping one of the Islamist gunmen responsible for the Paris shootings.
Looming over the meeting is also the deadline set by members of the IS group for Tokyo to pay a $200 million ransom for the release of two Japanese hostages. Tokyo believes the deadline will expire just before 5pm on Friday Australian time.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida will not be at the London meeting, but held talks with Hammond on Wednesday as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe admitted it was a "race against time" to free the men.
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