London:
Britain should not join air strikes on Syria until there is a clear strategy to defeat the Islamic State group and bring peace to the country, an influential committee of MPs said Tuesday.
Prime Minister David Cameron's government wants to extend Britain's current involvement in international air strikes on targets in Iraq into Syria if it can get support from across the political spectrum in a House of Commons vote.
However, the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in a new report that Cameron's focus on joining air strikes was "incoherent" and "a distraction".
"There is now a miscellany of uncoordinated military engagements by an alarming range of international actors in Iraq and Syria," said committee chairman Crispin Blunt, a senior MP for Cameron's Conservatives.
"These forces desperately need coordinating into a coherent strategy and that is where our efforts should be focused.
"Making the military picture yet more complex is a distraction from the key task -- to help end the suffering and reverse the spread of this dangerous, barbaric and regressive ideology."
Blunt urged the government to focus on supporting international diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict, which has killed over 250,000 people, following last week's talks in Vienna attended by 17 countries.
Cameron has said he will only push a vote on Syrian air strikes in the Commons if there is a "genuine consensus" behind the plan.
The government argues that it is illogical to conduct air strikes in Iraq and not neighbouring Syria, saying the two countries are "a single theatre of conflict".
In his response to the report, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond did not directly mention the possibility of a vote on Britain joining air strikes on Syria but said ministers would use "every tool available" to save lives in the region.
"RAF air strikes against ISIL are not the sole solution but military action, in coordination with our coalition allies, is having a substantial impact in degrading ISIL in Iraq," he added.
"It is right that we continue to use military force against ISIL while we use diplomatic power to work towards a political solution in the Syrian war."
Cameron's previous coalition government was badly bruised by a Commons defeat over a plan to launch air strikes in Syria in 2013 and ministers are keen to avoid a similar result.
The new leader of the main opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, is a leading anti-war campaigner who is opposed to extending air strikes, although some Labour MPs support the move.
For action in Iraq, Britain is currently part of a coalition of over 60 countries and has eight Tornado jets flying missions plus an unconfirmed number of Reaper drones.
This was approved by parliament in September last year.