US Secretary of State condemns severed head image

By ROD McGUIRK - Aug. 12, 2014 2:13 AM EDT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has described a photograph of a Sydney-born 7-year-old boy clutching the severed head of a Syrian soldier as "one of the most disturbing, stomach-turning, grotesque photographs ever displayed."

The Australian newspaper reported Monday that the image was taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and posted on Twitter by the boy's convicted terrorist father, Khaled Sharrouf.

Kerry said in Sydney on Tuesday that the image showed why the Islamic State group posed such a threat to the world.

He proposed taking the issue of foreign fighters to the United Nations so that countries could agree on best practice to protect themselves from the terrorist threat from fighters returning from Syria and Iraq.