Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, has said “extreme force” is justified in battling Islamic State (Isis) militants.
His robust comments make him the most vocal western leader to comment on the Sunni extremists who have successfully set up a caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.
They come a day after David Cameron mooted the idea that parliamentary approval might not be necessary for a bombing campaign.
Mr Abbott said Australia will “in coming days” join the United States in an international effort to transport weapons to Kurdish forces fighting jihadists in northern Iraq.
He said it has also been conducting humanitarian air drops to the besieged town of Amerli.
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While Mr Abbott has insisted that Canberra will not be sending combat troops to the conflict, he has stepped up his rhetoric against the jihadist group, calling it a “death cult” carrying out ethnic cleansing.
He also compared them to the Nazis and communists.
“The difficulty here is that these people do exalt in death; they absolutely revel in killing,” he told Sydney radio station 2GB.
“We’ve seen in the century just gone, the most unspeakable things happen, but the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis, by the communists and others, they were ashamed of them, they tried to cover them up.
“This mob, by contrast, as soon as they’ve done something gruesome and ghastly and unspeakable, they’re advertising it on the internet for all to see which makes them, in my mind, nothing but a death cult.
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“That’s why I think it’s quite proper to respond with extreme force against people like this.”
Mr Abbott’s comments came as a senior UN rights official said Isis had carried out “acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale”.
Australia is gearing up to fly a C130 aircraft to the Iraqi capital Baghdad “in coming days”, before heading to Kurdish-controlled Arbil. The plane will then reportedly land to hand over weaponry, which will include mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
The dangers faced by Australian and allied forces was highlighted with a report that a C130 Hercules came under machine-gun fire as it dropped aid to Amerli.
Mr Abbott said he had not been fully briefed on what might have happened.
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“I’ve seen the report in the paper and yes, they were flying into an active combat zone, so there may well have been fire in the area, but I’m not advised that they came under direct fire themselves,” he said.
“Obviously, flying into a war zone, combat zones, air drops, even humanitarian air drops into combat zones are full of risk, but the risks are reasonable given the importance of the missions they’re flying.”