CAIRO
Discussions among Arab leaders at the next Arab summit will focus on the fight against "terrorism" and the measures that should be adopted in this regard, a senior Arab League official has said.
"The fight against terrorism and the measures that must be taken in this regard will top the agenda at the Arab foreign ministers' meeting in March and the Arab summit to be held later the same month," Deputy Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed bin Heli said at a Thursday press conference.
The summit, the largest annual gathering of top Arab officials, is expected to be held in Egypt late next month.
Bin Heli said he had been instructed by Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi to invite Arab interior ministers to discuss the measures that ought to be taken to advance the fight against "terrorism."
The emergence of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a militant group that overran vast territories in both Iraq and Syria last year, has sent chills down the spines of peoples and officials across the Arab world.
The ISIL says it is bent on establishing an "Islamic caliphate" (state) in the Middle East region.
However, the organization's abhorrent practices have shocked Islamic religious establishments across the Arab world.
The organization recently posted a video online purportedly showing the immolation of a Jordanian pilot captured by ISIL fighters weeks earlier.
The gruesome nature of the act – along with other crimes committed by the group – is unprecedented in the history of the Islamic faith, religious scholars say.
