Retired U.S. General John Allen, special envoy for building the coalition against Islamic State, speaks to the media during a news conference at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad January 14, 2015.

Deadly attacks by militants in Paris and other Western cities underline the need for a “global response” to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), U.S. envoy John Allen said on Wednesday, according to Agence France Presse.

“As we saw so tragically in Paris last week, Iraq is on the front lines of a global conflict,” Allen said at a news conference in Baghdad, referring to violence including attacks on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket which killed a total of 17 people.

ISIS’ “dark, violent ideology has a long reach,” also inspiring militants to carry out attacks in Sydney, Ottawa and Brussels, said Allen, who is coordinating international efforts against the militants.

“None of us can afford to say that degrading and defeating Daesh is solely an Iraqi responsibility. Daesh is a global threat. It demands a global response,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

The militant group spearheaded a lightning offensive in June that overran much of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad.

It later turned its attention to forces from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, driving them back towards their capital in an attack that helped trigger a U.S.-led air war against ISIS.

Allen said that eight countries were carrying out strikes against ISIS in Iraq, while 12 have pledged to train the country’s security forces.

The U.S. and allied countries aim to train 5,000 federal and Kurdish forces every six to eight weeks at five training sites in various parts of Iraq.

But it remains to be seen whether the relatively brief program will be enough, and if the security forces continue training to maintain newly acquired skills.

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