Failure in Syria risks total war

Failure to act in Syria risks stoking a "total war" in the Middle East, French President Francois Hollande said in a landmark speech to the European Parliament alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"What happens in Syria concerns Europe, what happens there will determine the balance of the whole region for a long time," Hollande told European lawmakers in Strasbourg.

"If we leave these religious clashes between Sunnis and Shiites, they will grow. Don't think we will be sheltered, this will be a total war."

"We have to construct in Syria, with all those who can contribute, a political future which gives the Syrian people an alternative to Bashar or Daesh," Hollande said, using another name for IS.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter insisted yesterday that the US is not cooperating with Russia over Moscow's air strikes in Syria beyond basic safety precautions, describing Russia's action there as fundamentally mistaken.

"I have said before that we believed that Russia has the wrong strategy -- they continue to hit targets that are not ISIL. We believe this is a fundamental mistake," Carter told a press conference in Rome, referring to the Islamic State group.