President Barack Obama called on the world Wednesday to join the US-led coalition to defeat ’jihadists’ in Iraq and Syria, branding them terrorists engaged in a "network of death."

President Barack Obama called on the world Wednesday to join the US-led coalition to defeat 'jihadists' in Iraq and Syria, branding them terrorists engaged in a "network of death."

"The United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death," Obama told the UN General Assembly. "Today I ask the world to join in this effort."

The US president spoke as the United States, backed by its Arab allies, carried out a second wave of air strikes in Syria, the latest front in its campaign to destroy the Islamic State group.

"The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force," Obama said in his address to the 193-nation Assembly.

"We will use our military might in a campaign of air strikes to roll back ISIL," he asserted, referring to ISIL.