'Understanding the attraction of IS more important than dropping bombs'

Hours before UK parliamentarians voted with a huge majority to support the Prime Minister's motion to join airstrikes in Iraq, Forward Thinking urged politicians to take a markedly different approach.

Forward Thinking, a UK-based organisation working towards mediation in the Middle East, issued a press release calling for a more long-term approach.

"Most Britons, I suspect, share in common a sense of revulsion not only at the barbaric way in which the British aid worker, David Haines, and others were executed, but also at what’s happening to the Yezidi, Shia and Christian communities in those areas of the Middle East already under ISIS control."

" The need for decisive action to address the growing threat that ISIS poses for the stability and security of the whole Gulf, Middle East and North Africa region is real."

However, according to the statement, IS "cannot be defeated by words of condemnation or military action alone."

"The Islamic State movement is a symptom of the failure of Western policies in the region over the past hundred years, which have always put our own economic interests before our values. To secure the continuous flow of relatively cheap oil and lucrative trade deals, we have propped up oligarchies and turned a blind eye to the export of sectarian ideologies packaged in the name of religious piety."

"An ideology cannot be defeated by bombs – the need to understand the attraction of ISIS is more important."