Obama oversees passage of U.N. resolution to combat foreign terrorist fighters
President Obama on Wednesday oversaw the unanimous approval by the United Nations Security Council of a legally binding resolution requiring all U.N. member countries to make it a crime for their citizens to join or support foreign terrorist organizations.
"The tactic of terrorism is not new," Mr. Obama said. However, he continued, "What brings us together today -- what is new -- is the unprecedented flow of fighters in recent years to and from conflict zones."
The meeting marked only the second time a U.S. president has chaired a meeting of the Security Council -- the previous time was in 2009, when Mr. Obama chaired a meeting on nuclear nonproliferation.
"We convene such sessions to address the most urgent threats to peace and security," Mr. Obama said.
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According to intelligence assessments, Mr. Obama noted, more than 15,000 foreign fighters from more than 80 nations have traveled to Syria in recent years to join groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front.
"In the Middle East and elsewhere, these terrorists exacerbate conflicts," Mr. Obama said. "They pose an immediate threat to those in the region... [and] they may try to return to their home countries."
Mr. Obama said that stemming the flow of foreign fighters is "an essential part of successful counterterrorism efforts" and that the "historic resolution we just adopted enshrines our commitment to meet this challenge."
Foreign policy experts have noted that the new U.N. resolution is unusually expansive. Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CBS News that there are still some open questions about how it will be interpreted and implemented.
"One of them is that you're asking the United Nations, which has never been able to come up with an agreed definition of what a terrorist is, to agree what a foreign fighter is," he said. "There are questions about how broadly applicable this new rule would be -- for instance, if it would prevent U.S. support for moderate Arabs going to fight against Bashar al-Assad" in Syria.
