The UK government should consider training Syrian refugees who are trying to flee the region and sending them back to fight against ISIS, a former head of the army has said.
Sir Richard Dannatt said the UK should consider "holding" young men trying to escape the civil war in refugee camps – where they should be trained to take part in military combat alongside local forces.
Dannatt, who was chief of the defence staff from 2006 to 2009, made the comments on Monday when he appeared on BBC's Daily Politics show.
He said:
We see our television screens filled, this is a little controversial, with streams of refugees coming into this country, including a lot of fit young men.
They've come from that region. Do they not want to go back to their own towns, villages and cities?
In which case we should be holding them in the area of the refugee camps, training them, putting them into units, reinforcing local forces so that they can fight for their own peace, their own freedom, their villages, their own towns.