Nearly a month of Russian airstrikes in Syria has boosted morale at a refugee camp in a suburb of this coastal city, where residents displaced by the long civil war had words of praise Friday for President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s air campaign.

“I hope that with Russian pilots’ help, our military will advance and defeat terrorists so that we could return to our homes,” said ?hmad Attan, a camp resident who served in the Syrian military and was wounded in fighting.

Camp resident Fadila Mahmud Naasan said her son served in the army and their family had to flee militant attacks on supporters of President Bashar Assad. She lost her leg because of illness while in a refugee camp.

During a tour arranged by the Russian Defense Ministry, a busload of Moscow-based journalists rolled into the camp next to a sports stadium, drawing shouts of “Putin, thank you!” from the residents.

Putin has raised Russia’s profile in the Syrian crisis this week, meeting with Assad in Moscow and making a diplomatic push with the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey to discuss a political settlement to the civil war, now in its fifth year.

In Vienna, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia and Jordan had agreed to coordinate their military activities in Syria, setting up a center in the Jordanian capital to coordinate their air campaigns.

Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said in Amman that cooperation with Russia is not new, adding that Jordan remains part of the U.S.-led coalition that is conducting its own airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria.

In the meantime, Russia’s air campaign that began Sept. 30 continued Friday, with a steady stream warplanes taking off from nearby Hemeimeem air base.

Activists reported that overnight airstrikes killed 11 militants from the Islamic State, but also at least seven civilians in the extremists’ stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria. The activists — from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the group known as Raqqa is Being Slaughtered — said the strikes were believed to have been carried out by Russian jets.

Syrian activists also said at least 14 civilians, including seven children and a baby, were killed when Syrian jets bombed a town in the central province of Homs.

The Observatory said the target was struck Friday in the town of Talbiseh. The Syrian Revolution Talbiseh, a Facebook page operated by activists in the town, posted video of the airstrikes. They showed a street covered in the debris of a collapsed building and white smoke above the heads of men searching for survivors.

Talbiseh, north of the provincial capital Homs, has come under intense airstrikes by Syrian and Russian jets since Russia launched its air campaign. Activists said that on the first day of the Russian airstrikes, more than 30 civilians were killed in Talbiseh, although Moscow denied hitting civilians.

At a briefing in a Syrian military residential compound near the base, spokesman Gen. Ali Maihub said the Syrian army was continuing to advance against its opponents. He reeled off reports of militants killed and their vehicles and weapons destroyed.

The coastal province of Latakia is in the heartland of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. An Assad stronghold, it has remained firmly under government control and has largely been spared the destruction that most of the country has suffered in the conflict that began in 2011.

Putin on Thursday said that the Syrian government should join efforts against the Islamic State group with “those opposition forces that are ready for dialogue.”

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would be happy to cooperate with opposition forces in Syria but will base its decisions on who it should talk to upon consultations with the Syrian government, as well as with the West and countries from the Middle East which advocate Assad’s removal from power.

A group of Russian lawmakers also visited Syria on Friday on a humanitarian tour and were scheduled to meet with Assad in Damascus.

(AP)