Obama: We Must Destroy 'Network Of Death'

US President Barack Obama has called on the world to join together to destroy the Islamic State, which he branded a "network of death".

Addressing the United Nations, he vowed to keep up the pressure on the militants, warning them to "leave the battlefield while they can".

He spoke shortly before the Pentagon said US and Arab aircraft had resumed bombing raids against the jihadists in Syria.

Department of Defense officials said some of the latest airstrikes targeted oil fields seized by the group.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has recalled Parliament this Friday for a vote on possible UK airstrikes in Iraq .

President Obama said the US would never be at war with Islam, as he challenged Muslims in the Middle East to repudiate the ideology that has allowed groups like IS to flourish.

"Ultimately, the task of rejecting sectarianism and extremism is a generational task," he said, "a task for the people of the Middle East themselves.

"No external power can bring about a transformation of hearts and minds."

He said IS had gunned down innocent children and starved religious minorities to death.

"No god condones this terror," he said. "No grievance justifies these actions.

"There can be no negotiation with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force."

Mr Obama invited the rest of the world to join more than 40 nations said to have already offered to join the US-led coalition.

The American military also said it launched five more airstrikes earlier on Wednesday targeting IS on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.

The first American raids on IS targets in Syria were launched on Tuesday, supported by Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Among the areas hit was the IS stronghold of Raqqa where it is thought British aid worker Alan Henning has been held hostage by the group.

The leader of an al Qaeda unit called Khorasan, which the US says was plotting imminent attacks against the West, died in the opening salvo , an American official told Reuters.

The US also struck al Qaeda's main Syria branch, known as the Nusra Front.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told Sky News the airstrikes have already hampered the ability of insurgents to plan attacks on the US and Europe.

The US President has said the campaign against IS, which is declaring a "caliphate" in swathes of Syria and Iraq, could last years.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has not objected to the American-led raids against the Islamist insurgents.

His forces carried out their own airstrikes on Wednesday against a rebel bastion in the south of the country.