Images of Russian fighter jets at airbase near Syria's Latakia Russian fighter jets take off and land at the Khmeimin airbase near the Syrian coastal town of Latakia, home to President Bashar al-Assad's clan and regime bastion. Russia has been a decades-long ally of Damascus and stuck by its side when the uprising against Assad broke out in 2011, before devolving into a civil war, carrying out as of September 2015 air strikes that have allowed Syrian troops to retake swathes of territory. IMAGES