WASHINGTON (AFP) ― U.S. President Barack Obama plans to make his case against the Islamic State militants before the world at the United Nations General Assembly next week in a bid for greater international support in the anti-IS fight.

“We won’t hesitate to take action against these terrorists in Iraq or in Syria,” Obama said of the militants who have seized territory in the two neighboring countries.

“But this is not America’s fight alone.”

The United States is leading efforts to build a global response to the growing IS threat.

The resulting alliance has produced strange bedfellows, with Washington‘s traditional foe Iran represented at a meeting called by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, along with U.S. allies Britain, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

And even France, which refused to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago, became the first nation to join the U.S. aerial campaign in the war-torn country as it carried out an air strike targeting the militants.

“We’ll lead a broad coalition of nations who have a stake in this fight,” Obama said in his weekly address on Saturday.

“This isn‘t America vs. ISIL. This is the people of that region vs. ISIL.

It’s the world vs. ISIL,” he added, using another acronym by which the extremist group is known.

But despite broad support at home for a tougher stance, Obama has vowed not to send U.S. “boots on the ground,” fearful of dragging his forces back into the Iraqi quagmire only three years after withdrawing U.S. troops from the country.