U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, have headed up the launch of a new multilateral organization aimed at fighting terrorism.

The new group – the Global Counterrorism Forum – was launched Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The group includes 29 countries plus the European Union, bound by the common goal of developing a counterterrorism network that is, in Clinton's words, “as nimble and adaptive as our adversaries.”

Clinton said until the formation of this group, U.N. counterterrorism activities lacked a dedicated global venue for key counterterrorism policy makers to convene and strategize.

The group includes nations from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Five initial working groups will focus on criminal justice, countering violent extremism, and building capacity for counterterrorism in Africa's Sahel region, the Horn of Africa, and southeast Asia.