US President Barack Obama has pointed to a "silver lining" in the violence wrought by the Islamic State, saying it has brought "clarity" in the Muslim world in a long time about the need to snuff out this "brand of Islamic extremism".

At a Democratic Party fund-raiser, Obama said the militant group IS, poses the most prominent threat in the Middle East when it comes to terrorism. The IS, he said has not only taken over large swathes of Iraq and Syria but displayed the kind of brutality that even by the standards of terrorists is extraordinary.

"What also is a silver lining in the terrible mayhem that ISIL has wrought throughout the region is that it has focused attention I think for the first time in a long time in the Muslim world, a great clarity about the need to completely distance from and ultimately snuff out this particular brand of Islamic extremism that really has no place in the 21st century," Obama said yesterday.