While the desperate flight of Syrians from their country’s war was dominating news bulletins, yet another diplomatic push to end the four-year-old conflict was quietly running into the sand.

ON Oct 3, a mortar shell crossed from Syria into Turkey and smashed into Zeliha Timucin’s home, killing Timucin, her sister, and three of her kids.

The West is being “outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised” by violent Islamic extremism, Tony Blair has warned.