United Nations, Oct 17 (IANS): The UN Security Council voiced deep concern over the situation in northeast Syria after Turkey launched a military incursion into the region last week.

"The Security Council expressed deep concern over the risk of the spreading of terrorists from UN-designated groups, including ISIL," South Africa's UN ambassador Jerry Matjila said on Wednesday, in his capacity as Security Council president for the month of October, Xinhua news agency reported.

ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or simply the Islamic State.

The council members are also very concerned over the risk of the further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syria, Matjila told reporters after the Security Council held closed-door consultations on the situation in northeast Syria.

Wednesday's meeting was requested by the council's EU members --Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Poland. UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, and Mohamed Khaled Khiari, assistant secretary-general for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, briefed the council.