Italy on Wednesday issued its strongest warning yet about the danger of the Islamic State group establishing a stronghold in Libya from where it could attack Europe and destabilize neighboring states.

Addressing parliament, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni also outlined Italy's readiness to play a leading role in de-arming and rebuilding its former colony in the event of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in a conflict that has plagued Libya since the 2011 Western-backed overthrow of Moammar Ghadafi.

Egypt called Wednesday on the United Nations to lift an arms embargo on Libya as Cairo pushes for greater international efforts to combat jihadists in its war-torn neighbor.

In talks in New York ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told fellow diplomats that Libya's internationally recognized government needed to be better armed to take on Islamist militias who have seized large parts of the country.

Decked out in his U.S. army-issued fatigues and a lip stud shining from his mouth, the young American fighter cuts an unusual figure in the northern Iraqi town of Al-Qosh.

He served in the U.S. army in Baghdad in 2006-2007 and has now returned to fight the Islamic State jihadist group with Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia whose name is an Assyrian-language phrase conveying self-sacrifice.

Western powers on Tuesday stressed the need for a political solution to the crisis in Libya in a statement apparently distancing them from calls for military intervention in the north African state.

The "brutal" recent beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians by militants affiliated to the Islamic State group demonstrated "once again the urgent need for a political solution to the conflict," a statement issued in the name of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said, according to an Italian version released by the foreign ministry in Rome.

The United Nations human rights chief on Tuesday condemned the mass beheadings of Egyptian Christians in Libya and urged Libyans to fight Islamist extremists in their country.

"The brutal murder of these men, and the ghastly attempt to justify and glorify it in a video, should be roundly condemned by everyone, in particular by the people of Libya who should resist the urgings of takfiri (Sunni extremist) groups," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement.

Egypt called Tuesday for U.N.-backed international intervention in Libya after launching air strikes on Islamic State targets in retaliation for the jihadist group's beheading of Egyptian Christians.

The matter will be taken up by the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday after a request by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, diplomats said.

By targeting the Islamic State group with air strikes in Libya, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, having crushed Islamist opponents at home, has become a key ally of the West against jihadists, experts say.

His warplanes bombed IS camps and weapons stores in the Libyan city of Derna hours after the Sunni extremists released a gruesome video showing masked jihadists beheading 21 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach.

The European Union said Monday it will meet with the Egyptian and U.S. governments this week to discuss joint action on Libya, but saw no EU role in any military intervention for now.

In the wake of a mass killing of Egyptian Christians in Libya, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, said she would hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

The chaos in Libya since Moammar Gadhafi's downfall has proven fertile ground for the Islamic State group, prompting increasing calls for foreign intervention to uproot the jihadists.

In a video released Sunday, IS said it beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach, in a likely bid to strike fear and show the Sunni extremists' reach now stretches beyond its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds.

The U.N. Security Council on Monday condemned the apparent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians by Islamic State militants in Libya as "heinous and cowardly," and urged member states to "combat by all means" such threats to international peace.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also denounced the killings, which were shown on a video posted Sunday on the Internet.