President Barack Obama promised Saturday that Islamic extremists would find no safe haven anywhere, while the leader of Muslim-majority Malaysia branded the Islamic State group as a "new evil" that has blasphemed the religion, and urged world leaders to confront it forcefully.
Obama and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak were speaking separately at an Asian summit taking place against the backdrop of recent violence including the bombing of a Russian jet over Egypt, a suicide bombing in Beirut, a series of attacks in Paris, the slaying of a Malaysian hostage by militants in the Philippines and Friday's attack on a Mali hotel.
Obama and Najib will attend a larger summit of 18 Asia-Pacific countries on Sunday.
Among them are Australia, Brunei, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia, which are all members of a new U.S.-led free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Obama administration had pushed hard to achieve.
