Will never forget tragic images of Peshawar carnage: Kerry

DAVOS: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that terrorist attacks such as the one on the Army Public School in Peshawar can never be excused.

Speaking against a backdrop of deadly militant attacks in France, Pakistan, Nigeria and elsewhere, Kerry told leaders at the annual World Economic Forum: "These kinds of actions can never be excused. And they have to be opposed. With every fiber of our being, they have to be stopped."

“We have to take risks, we have to invest more resources,” he said.

He said that he would never be able to forget the tragic images of the carnage in Peshawar that were shown to him by officials during his latest visit to Pakistan.

Countries must devote more resources to fight global extremism, said Kerry, but the battle would falter if it becomes consumed by sectarian division or Islamophobia.

Shortly before, President Francois Hollande of France, which is still reeling from the killing of 17 people by gunmen in Paris two weeks ago, urged global business leaders to help fight terrorism by cracking down on money laundering and trafficking.

Kerry also announced he would travel on Sunday to Nigeria, Africa´s most populous country battered by a Boko Haram insurgency that has killed thousands of people.

Kerry described Islamic State militants, who have seized wide swathes of Iraq and Syria, as "a collection of monsters.

"There´s no room for sectarian division, there´s no room for anti-Semitism or Islamophobia."