Graeme Lamb, who was an architect of the ‘surge’ strategy in Iraq, advocates establishing safe zone in Syria to enable international aid efforts

One of Britain’s most senior retired generals has called for the implementation of a no-fly zone in Syria and said the situation in the country is now so serious that “doing nothing is no longer an option”.

Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, a former director of the SAS and one of the architects of the Iraq “surge” strategy, said a no-fly zone over north-west Syria would protect civilians and stem the tide of refugees from the area.

Lamb told the Guardian that the proposition for a safe zone where civilians could be safe from aerial attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces “demands a careful but quick analysis” before finding regional and international support to put it into effect.

In the last few months Assad’s helicopters have dropped crude barrel bombs on rebel-held areas targeting hospitals and marketplaces. In recent months many of those barrels have been filled with poisonous chlorine, causing multiple deaths and severe respiratory injuries.

“This [safe] space needs to be secured by whatever force and understanding necessary and if infringed then the ramifications of doing so must be pre-set, clear, unequivocal and effective,” Lamb said, adding that any such agreement would mean the UK talking to Russia, Iran and Gulf states.

Lamb’s call, which was welcomed by the umbrella organisation for Syrian medical relief personnel, comes as world leaders including David Cameron travel to the UN on Sunday to try to make a deal that could allow Assad to maintain some authority as part of a transitional postwar government.



Lamb served as US general David Petraus’s right-hand man in Iraq during one of the country’s most turbulent periods of fighting – but one which was successful for western forces. This week during a hearing by a Senate panel, Petraeus urged Barack Obama to credibly threaten Assad’s air force as part of a renewed strategy for tackling the Syrian crisis.

Lamb said the situation in Syria was now so serious that doing nothing, “or at best continuing to attempt to manage the situation … is no longer an option”.



He said: “We the British in the 19th century had a foreign policy of ‘masterful inactivity’ in central Asia. Our policy on Syria to date has embraced the latter and forgotten the former. It is time to engage the very best of our considerable diplomatic skills, underpinned by military force.”

Lamb said this needed to be twinned with a plan to “systematically eliminate” Isis’s operation in Syria.

“We should not forget that there are just two guilty partners that are the sole reason for this humanitarian disaster: the Assad regime and Isis. It is time to take both seriously and develop an agreed comprehensive response and deliverable plan to remove these sores.”

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The chairman of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations (UOSSM), Ghanem Tayara, backed Lamb’s call, saying that a no-fly zone or enclave free from aerial attack would allow medical organisations to triple their work in the area and reduce the number of refugees.

“With security on the ground provided by the Free Syrian Army and a no-fly zone to prevent the Assad barrel bombs in this region of north-west Syria, I believe UOSSM can provide at least three times the amount of medical care we currently do in this area. This would allow thousands of refugees to return to Syria and prevent thousands more leaving,” he said.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert and security adviser to the charity Syria Relief, said a safe zone secured by a no-fly zone would allow the international community to effectively reinvest in Syria.

“A [secure position] in north-west Syria is likely to prevent the 500,000 internally displaced refugees in this area from leaving and begin to encourage the millions of refugees outside Syria to return,” he said.