Military solutions are not enough to defeat global terrorism, said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today, as South-East Asian leaders mourned for the victims of several recent deadly attacks.

"Events of recent days and weeks have cast a shadow over us all," Najib said at the start of the 10-country Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Kuala Lumpur.

"There cannot be a person in this hall who has not been shocked and shaken by the sickening disregard for human life," he added. "Our countries are mourning, we all share in this grief."

But Najib insisted that military responses "will not be enough to defeat those who see peace and want to cause war.

"In this time of tragedy, we must not lose sight of the fact that the ideology itself must be exposed as a lie that it is - and be vanquished," he said.

Najib invoked the examples set by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr, "who won the hearts and minds of their enemies."

"They won by transforming their foes into friends," Najib said.

Security was tight around Kuala Lumpur today, with hundreds of heavily armed soldiers guarding the venue, which opened a day after terrorists killed 21 people in an attack on a hotel in Mali.

But some 100 anti-US protesters still gathered near the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre to denounce US President Barack Obama, a newly signed 12-country trade deal, and America's war against terrorism.

The protesters carried placards reading "America's war on terrorism is a war against Islam," and "Obama stop killing our sisters and children" or "O terrorist you are not welcome here."

They also denounced the Washington-led trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which they said would only benefit the US.

Obama arrived in Kuala Lumpur on yesterday to join the two-day summit.

The American leader on today told business leaders that the attack on Mali only stiffens the resolve of the international community to fight terrorism.

Prior to the Mali attack, 170 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut. Additionally, 224 people perished in a presumed terrorist bombing of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt.

Earlier in the week, a Malaysian was also beheaded by al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern Philippines.

Asean groups Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Obama, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will later join their Asean counterparts for a larger East Asia summit.

Other countries participating in the East Asia summit are South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia.

- dpa