The world is "turning the tide" against Islamic extremism, Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said.
The world is "turning the tide" against Islamic extremism, Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday at the United Nations, declaring that global powers ultimately will triumph over a "bankrupt and odious ideology. ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack in British capital, London, in which around 40 people were injured. The attacker, identified as Khalid Masood, killed three people near parliament before being shot dead. Masood was a 52-year-old British-born man once investigated by MI5 intelligence officers over concerns about violent extremism.
"Today in New York and yesterday in Washington, I have seen countries come together, including countries from the Muslim world," Johnson said, one day after an attacker's bloody rampage outside the British parliament claimed three lives.
"We are exposing the ludicrous pretensions of this so-called caliphate," the top British diplomat said at a press conference at the world body, where he was due to attend a UN Security Council meeting on Somalia.
"The world is united to defeat the people who launched this attack, to defeat their bankrupt and odious ideology," Johnson added.
"There is a tide of hate washing around the world and we together I believe can turn that tide."
During five minutes of mayhem in the heart of London on Wednesday, Masood had sped across Westminster Bridge in a car, ploughing into pedestrians. He then ran through the gates of the nearby parliamentary precinct and fatally stabbed an unarmed policeman before being shot dead. Police arrested eight people at six locations in London and Birmingham in the investigation into the attack.
(With inputs from AFP and Reuters)