Bloody Sunday

Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards told the BBC that British troops could be deployed to Syria in the event of a "major humanitarian crisis."

He suggested that any intervention would be limited and would need the support of people inside Syria but any such move would be seen as a step towards a full-scale military intervention.

"It would be a huge effort. We would be very cautious about it.

"There is no ultimately military reason why one shouldn't and I know that all these options are quite rightly being examined, but we are some way off."

He said it was anticipated that the humanitarian situation would worsen over the winter which could lead to calls for intervention "in a limited way."

He said: "Obviously we develop contingency plans to look at all these things. It is my job to make sure that these options are continually brushed over to make sure that we can deliver them and they are credible.

"The international community and the political leaders need to decide what they want to do and then people like me can develop plans to meet those requirements. At the same time the people inside Syria must agree."

His comments come after David Cameron was accused of ratcheting up the rhetoric for war during a trip to the Middle East and Western diplomats met opposition figures in Doha in a bid to broker a new "government in waiting."

And just today Defence Secretary Philip Hammond admitted that Whitehall officials were actively considering plans to arm the Syrian opposition despite the fact this would break international law.

"At the moment we don't have a legal basis for delivering assistance to the rebels but this is something that the Prime Minister keeps asking us to test - the legal position, the military position - and we will continue to look at all options," he told BBC1's Sunday Politics.

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German told the Star: "It does tell us something about the hypocrisy of these people that they claim we should be remembering the dead of past conflicts while at the same time stoking up future wars.

"This is what's happening in Syria and now that the US election is over it will increase."

"All the signs are there that the Western powers were seeking regime change in Syria as they had in Iraq and Libya," she said.

nUniversity of London student union rep Daniel Cooper came under fire today for declining to take part in a wreath laying, a day after Sunderland footballer James McClean was criticised for not wearing kit featuring a red poppy.