Boris Johnson calls for West to look at ‘military options’ for the first time to halt massacre in besieged Syria town of Aleppo

A HOT war with Russia last night took a step closer after Boris Johnson called for the West to look at “military options” to halt the massacre in Syria.

The Foreign Secretary revealed US Secretary of State John Kerry and other key allies will fly to London on Sunday for an emergency summit to discuss tough new ways of halting the brutal bombing of Aleppo by Russia and Syria.

Enforcing a no fly zone or no bombing zone with the help of RAF jets will be on the table for the first time.

The bold move has been long called for by peace campaigners, but always ruled out for the last five bloody years of the civil war by outgoing US President Barack Obama.

The development confirms The Sun’s revelations this week that the Foreign Secretary was pushing for a significant escalation in military intervention in Syria.

Mr Johnson told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that the “people of Aleppo are hoping desperately that we and our allies may be able to do something to alleviate their suffering in the face of the barbaric assault of the Syrian regime, and the connivance of Russia and Iran.”

Speaking on Thursday morning Mr Johnson said it is “now right that we should be looking again at the more kinetic options, the more military options” to stop the town being “pulverised”.

But he warned “we have to be more realistic at how this in fact would work and what is deliverable”.

Boris’s escalation came as Aleppo mayor Brita Haj Hassan branded it death “death city” yesterday and again appealed for international help to save 250,000 people trapped in the rebel-held enclave – 100,000 of them children.

On Tuesday, Mr Johnson infuriated Moscow with his accusations that of war crimes by Russian forces and called for protests outside the Russian Embassy in London.

Last night a furious Kremlin hit back branding the Foreign Secretary a “jack of all trades” and accused him of “politicking, in the usual arrogant way”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused his counterpart of trying to become the world’s “prosecutor-general”.

Campaigners were delighted with Mr Johnson’s stand, and heaped praise on him for mounting it.

They are pushing for a no bombing zone instead of a no fly zone, where ground targets are attacked by cruise missiles in retaliation for infringing declared safe areas such as Aleppo.

Labour MP John Woodcock said: “We don’t want to target Russian pilots directly, but infrastructure like airfields.

“We’ve learned over these last three years that Putin will fill the vacuum left by the international community. Standing back makes the slaughter worse, which makes an eventual confrontation more likely.

“It’s our cowardice that has got us into his position, it’s only our resolve that will put Putin back in his box.”

Theresa May last night gave Mr Johnson the green light to explore options, but No10 was noticeably cooler to the idea.

The PM’s official spokeswoman said: “The PM would weigh up very carefully any option that is put forward”.

But he warned it is “very important not to get hopes up too high, because you will remember the point Mr Johnson insisted he was not seeking a new cold war style standoff:

“It is doing many, many terrible things, but I don’t think that Russia today can be compared with the Soviet Union as I remember as a child.

He added: I don’t think it is right to talk about a new cold war.”

“We have a very serious problem, but have to engage with Russia - we have to persuade the Russian government, we have to persuade Vladimir Putin, that there is another path for him and for his government.”

He told the powerful body of MPs: “On Sunday I am calling a meeting of my fellow Foreign Ministers, John Kerry is coming over.

“And my French and German counterparts and others to discuss exactly how we are going to proceed in not just in Syria but in Iraq as well.

“Most people, and I think including John Kerry, feel the argument, the process of discussion with the Russians has basically run out of road.

“And on the Sunday we will be talking about all of the options that we think are available to us and to the West.”

Calling for an escalation in our response, Mr Johnson warned: “We know the difficulties and implications of a no-fly zone or no-bombing zone, no matter how easy these concepts may be made to seem.

“If there is more we can reasonably and practically do together with our allies, then of course we should consider these measures - and believe me that work is already going on.”

But he warned it is “very important not to get hopes up too high, because you will remember the point Parliament got to in 2013 when this house took a big step backwards from intervention and i thought that was regrettable at the time.”

However he hinted he believed there was parliamentary arithmetic would support his new position, saying: “I’m not going to pretend there is any easy answer here because there isn’t, but I think most people are now changing their minds about this.”