MPs call for inquiry over Syria inaction

AN INDEPENDENT inquiry should examine Britain’s failure to intervene in the Syrian conflict, MPs have said.

The Commons foreign affairs committee said there had been a ‘manifest failure to protect civilians and to prevent mass atrocity crimes in Syria’ and the ‘price of inaction’ was ‘unacceptably high’.

The UK carried out air strikes against Bashar Assad’s regime in April following a chemical attack, but calls for action to protect civilians had been made as early as 2011.

In August 2013 David Cameron’s government was defeated in the Commons over intervention in Syria. The committee said the failure to act had opened the door for Russia and Iran to intervene.