The United States and the international community need Muslim leaders to counter Daesh's narratives that target young people, Shaarik Zafar, the Special Representative to Muslim Communities at the U.S. State Department, said on Tuesday.
"There is a responsibility for people who have religious credibility to push back [Daesh] narratives," Zafar told journalists after his address to Turkey-based NGOs in Istanbul.
Zafar stressed that these leaders and Muslim communities needed to be informed of the content on the Internet in order to reach out to the youth.
"They need to be informed [of the] propaganda on social media, on how terrorists are targeting young people. We need their help," he said.
The senior official said this was the message he conveyed to Mehmet Görmez, the head of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate in a meeting on Monday in Ankara.
Daesh has been cited for its exploitation of social media to attract and recruit a growing number of foreign fighters to fight for the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.
The UN estimates that more than 25,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries have travelled to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya to join Daesh.
The senior official also said the fight against Daesh was an "international challenge and a shared burden".
"We have to work together. Muslim states have a responsibility," he said.
