Egypt welcomed on Monday the announcement that the leader of the Islamic State terrorist group Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed in a US military operation‎, saying that this "represents an ‎important step in the quest to eradicate terrorism.‎" ‎

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced that Al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid by US Special Forces in northwest Syria, ‎in a major blow to the jihadist group.‎

Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said in an official statement ‎that "this development should be followed up with continued concerted international efforts ‎and unified action to counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations with no ‎discrimination, since all takfiri terrorist organisations like the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and the Muslim ‎Brotherhood emanate from the same extremist ideological source.”

Hafez also stressed that the world needs to tackle terrorism “from a ‎comprehensive perspective that takes into account the security and development facets, ‎as well as ideological confrontation in order to refute the misinterpretations of religious texts ‎promoted by terrorist groups.”‎

The spokesman also stressed that Egypt continues to urge the international community to hold accountable the countries ‎that play a negative role in inciting and supporting terrorism through financing, providing ‎safe havens, and facilitating the mobility of terrorist elements, and which provide various ‎platforms for spreading terrorist and extremist ideologies, which leads to destabilising the ‎region and the world. ‎

Baghdadi had been a target of US and regional security forces since he declared the formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in July 2014.