US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to the press alongside students from several Sydney high schools during his visit aboard a replica of Captain Cook's ship 'Endeavour' at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, Australia, Monday, Aug 11,
US Secretary of State John Kerry has described a photograph of a Sydney-born 7-year-old boy clutching the severed head of a Syrian soldier as "one of the most disturbing, stomach-turning, grotesque photographs ever displayed."
The Australian newspaper reported on Monday that the image was taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and posted on Twitter by the boy's convicted terrorist father, Khaled Sharrouf.
Kerry said in Sydney on Tuesday that the image showed why the Islamic State group posed such a threat to the world.
He proposed taking the issue of foreign fighters to the United Nations so that countries could agree on best practice to protect themselves from the terrorist threat from fighters returning from Syria and Iraq.