Syria group: Russia expanding major Syrian airport

BEIRUT (AP) — Russian forces are expanding the tarmac of a major airport in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar Assad and his minority sect, a prominent Syrian monitoring group said Sunday.

Russia, a longtime backer of Syria's government, denies it's trying to bolster Assad and says its increased military activity is part of the international effort to defeat the Islamic State group which has wreaked havoc in Syria and Iraq.

A former Lebanese general with knowledge of the Syrian military told The Associated Press last week that there are plans to build a military base in the coastal town of Jableh, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Latakia city, where the airport currently under development is located.

Officially named the Basel al-Assad International airport, after the president's brother who died in a car accident in 1994, it has one terminal, according to the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority website.

In an interview with Russian state television aired Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it was "absurd" for the West to exclude the Syrian armed forces from the fight against the Islamic State group.

Assad has suffered a string of battlefields losses, costing him control of two major provinces in the country's north, and various other areas including airports and strategic towns that fell to Sunni Islamist groups and IS fighters.