Bashar al-Assad asks Russia for military assistance

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asked Russia for providing military assistance, RIA Novosti reported citing the head of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergey Ivanov.

"So we may say that there is a need to combat terrorism, to combine efforts, but it is still necessary to comply with the norms of international law," Ivanov told reporters.

The decision includes only the use of the air force, head of the Presidential Administration said.

The military goal of the operations is exclusively air support of the Syrian government forces, he added.

Russia's Federation Council (upper house of parliament) has unanimously approved the use of the country's armed forces abroad.

"By the way, this is not the first time that we use armed forces abroad to counter terrorism," Ivanov said, adding that in fact, the country carried out the same activities in Tajikistan in early 1990s, Kazinform refers to Trend.az.