Russia's parliament granted President Vladimir Putinpermission to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, Russian media reported Wednesday.
Sergey Ivanov, the Kremlin's chief of staff, told journalists that Putin was granted permission to use armed forces outside the country by the Federation Council — the upper house of the Russian parliament — the TASS news agency reported.
However, Ivanov said Russia will only use its air force in Syria, where a civil war has been raging since 2011. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin later told reporters that Russia will supply “all the necessary armaments” to Syria, TASS reported.
CNN reported that a senior U.S. official said that Russia has conducted its first airstrike, near the city of Homs. It came after Reuters said the Kremlin declined to confirm some media reports in the Middle East that the country has already started carrying out air strikes in Syria.
Ivanov said the Federation Council "unanimously supported the president’s request" to use Russian forces in Syria, according to TASS. He added that Syrian President Bashar Assad had asked Russia to provide military assistance. He said that the number of Russians joining the extremist group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, is growing.
"The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against ISIL," he said, according to TASS.
"We are not pursing any foreign political goals or ambitions, of which we have been regularly accused. The point is just to defend Russia’s national interests."
On Tuesday, Putin said his country was considering whether to carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, where the U.S. and its allies are conducting a bombing campaign against the militant organization. His remarks came after a meeting with President Obama at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
According to the Russian constitution, Putin has to request parliamentary approval for the use of Russian troops abroad. The last time he did so was before Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.
Prosecutors in Paris on Wednesday opened a preliminary investigation into allegations by the French government of crimes against humanity committed by the Assad regime. The probe focuses on atrocities allegedly committed between 2011 and 2013 and is based on photos of mutilated corpses, the Paris prosecutor’s statement said.
President Francois Hollande announced Sunday that France launched its first airstrikes against ISIL positions in Syria, destroying one of the group’s training camps in a bombing raid.