Political solution must be found to Syrian crisis, say human rights groups

Stressing their political neutrality, they claimed that increased military intervention would lead to greater humanitarian need in the country, which has been at civil war for almost five years, and called for a range of measures, including more investment in aid both within Syria and on the borders, to be rolled-out without delay.

Their call was backed by Alex Salmond MP, who claiming military intervention was unjust, said that he would be raising the need for an urgent "refocus on finding a peaceful solution" to the bloody conflict, as well as calling for casualties to be properly recorded.

And writing for the Sunday Herald today, current First Minister Nicola Sturgeon raises the constitutional issues posed by this week's vote, which saw just two of Scotland's 59 MPs vote in favour of military intervention.

"In terms of Scotland’s view, almost all our democratically elected representatives at Westminster voted against UK airstrikes, but those strikes are now going ahead anyway," she writes. "That is a simple reality of the constitutional arrangement we currently have – and to point it out is a plain statement of fact, despite some ill-advised claims that to do so is to play politics with the situation."

The first UK airstrikes on oilfields controlled by IS were launched within hours of the Parliamentary vote, which was backed by 397 votes to 223. Further strikes, again on oilfields, were launched on Friday evening and plans to target IS control functions have been revealed.

Laurie Lee, chief executive of Care International, which has been providing emergency assistance in Syria since 2013, said he anticipated that increased air strikes would lead to more deaths and make life intolerable for Syrian civilians.

"Civilian deaths are a primary concern," he said. "We recognise you can't eliminate them - this will happen. We need a proper monitor to count casualties and we need to investigate each one properly. The Government should be putting out the numbers in a systematic way as it has done in Afghanistan.

"It will also lead to more displaced people.It is really unacceptable that we are not organised for ensuring that people can seek asylum with dignity and protection.

"There needs to be reasonable accommodation and conditions instead of a march of people who are cold, hungry, exhausted and subject to violence. This is only going to increase and we need to respond with urgency."

More reception centres, with humane conditions, where asylum claims could be processed were needed to stop the current "lottery" people faced when trying to flee, he added.

The Syrian conflict is said to be the worst humanitarian crisis of our times, with more than 11 million people killed or forced to flee their homes. The death toll is estimated at 250,000 with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claiming 1053 civilians - including 198 children and 116 women - were killed last month alone.

Calls for transparency were backed by Amnesty International, which also issued a plea for civilians to be put at the heart of any plans for military action earlier this week, reminding the UK Government of its obligations under international law.

Amnesty campaign manager Kristyan Benedict, who has been working in Syria, said: "It's of paramount importance that the UK and others in the region have a plan for this so we need increased investment for the United Nations. The UK says it's the second biggest donor but there's a humanitarian crisis here and so no government is doing enough."

The UN estimates that £5.6 billion would meet the urgent needs of the most vulnerable Syrians but less than half of that aid has been raised so far.

Benedict also called the UN to play a greater role, claiming that an international peace-keeping force on the ground is the needed to guaranteed long-term stability.

"If we are pursuing some form of stability we need to have a robust international presence on the ground if we hope to manage the process," he said.

"In Libya that didn't happen; once Gaddafi regime was pushed out the different factions started fighting each other. The same thing is going to happen in Syria if there is not a large scale human rights based presence on the ground."

In September the UK Government said it would commit a further £100m of aid to refugees in camps bordering Syria, with £40m of the additional cash would go to support the underfunded World Food Programme and £7m spent helping migrants travelling through Greece, Italy and the western Balkans.

However Simon O'Connell, executive director of Mercy Corps Europe – one of the largest organisations working in Syria – backed the call for increased humanitarian support.

"We have seen from our experience that where you have military intervention you have increased humanitarian need," he said. "We are working in a very complex, fluid situation and we expect to see an escalation in humanitarian need."

Stressing the organisation's impartiality he added: "We would like to see more effort go towards a political solution and we would urge all parties involved to make every effort to avoid causalities, to follow the strict protocols and international law. It's a horrendous, complex conflict. The urgency of need is great. "

Alexander Matheou, director of international programmes for British Red Cross agreed that a political solution was needed urgently. "The international community must act responsibly, redoubling efforts to achieve political solutions and in the meantime ensuring that international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles are respected and applied," he added calling for "the desperate plight of the Syrian people" to remain the focus.

Meanwhile Alex Salmond said the fact that the lack of support for intervention for airstrikes in Scotland underlined the increasing divergence between Holyrood and Westminster.

"It joins a number of issues such as austerity, such as Trident, where there is a huge divergence in terms of the politics of Scotland and Westminster," he said. "You can't continue to have a situation where on the issues of the day Scotland is consistently outvoted and disregarded by the government in Westminster.

"My basic fear is of civilian casualties. Daesh are not the most sophisticated army in the world but they are not stupid and they will take refugee with the rest of the population."

Salmond, who was widely criticised earlier in the week for claiming the Tony Benn would be "birling in his grave" as a result of Hilary Benn's speech in support of airstrikes, claimed Prime Minister David Cameron had "ruthlessly and blatantly" exploited the divisions in the Labour party to force the vote on an "unjust" intervention through.

"We look for our military interventions to be just. Our armed forces have the right to expect achievable objectives. This is unjust with unachievable objects and in that way our Prime Minister has badly let down the county and our armed forces, eschewing our entry into a bloody civil war with no realistic exit strategy, and one in which civilian casualties will be inevitable; there is no military system that can guard against that."

He claimed airstrikes signalled a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the "many-headed" IS, which he said was likely to re-emerge in other places after targets were hit, and instead a focus on finding a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict was needed. "It's a question of what's morally right but also what is necessary," he added.

Peace talks on Syria have been taking place in Vienna, with the last meeting held in min-November. UN officials have been given the ambitious task of bringing warring Syrian factions together in January.

Meanwhile, there are financial winners in the decision to go ahead with airstrikes with MBDA, the manufacturer of the British Brimstone missile - touted as the “most accurate precision strike product on the market” - likely to become a steady earner for the company.

Jointly owned by the UK’s largest defence company BAE Systems, Airbus Group and Italy’s Finmeccanica, Brimstone, which charges £175,00 for each of the 3,000 missiles it sold in 2013, has an order book of £7.8billion, now set to increase significantly as missiles used in Syria and Iraq are eventually replaced.