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The U.S. Senate on Thursday quickly approved President Barack Obama's plan to train and arm Syrian rebels in an effort to fight the Islamic State (IS) militant group, a day after the House of Representatives adopted the measure.
The Senate voted 78 to 22 to give the president the authority to offer more support for the rebels fighting both the Syrian government and IS militants.
The legislation will then land on Obama's desk for his signature into law.
"We're in a good position now," Senate majority leader Harry Reid said. "I think it's important that we have the ability to arm and train the rebels the way we're developing an international coalition. So I feel comfortable where we are."
The measure enables the Pentagon to train and arm what Washington calls "moderate" Syrian rebels, who will then fight on the ground while U.S. warplanes carry out airstrikes on IS targets inside Syria, part of a strategy unveiled by Obama on Sept. 10 for degrading and ultimately destroying the radical group running amok in both Syria and Iraq.
The U.S. military has launched air raids on the group's targets in Iraq since Aug. 8, and stepped up the operation over the weekend by hitting targets near Baghdad.
Polls show that Americans support the airstrikes on the IS, but are wary of an open-ended campaign in the region, as Obama said the battle against the group could go beyond his presidency that ends in January 2017.
"It's going to be much harder at this moment to give the president an open-ended commitment than it will be a couple of months from now," said Republican Senator Roy Blunt.
As mid-term elections are only two months away, the senator said the short-term plan is "actually the better way to approach this."
In remarks delivered at the White House, Obama said he was "pleased" at Congress's vote for his training plan.
Obama said more than 40 countries, including Arab nations, had agreed to join the coalition against the IS, while France would join in airstrikes against IS targets in Iraq.
French President Francois Hollande said earlier in the day that his country was ready to launch airstrikes "soon" against IS militants in Iraq.
Meanwhile, both Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have reiterated that the American military personnel deployed in Iraq "do not and will not have a combat mission."
"Instead, they will support Iraqi forces on the ground as they fight for their country," Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on Wednesday.
The IS has been strongly condemned by the world for its barbaric beheading of three Western hostages in the past month.
On Saturday, IS militants released a video showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines, 44, who was kidnapped last year.
Last month, the IS had executed two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, in response to the U.S. military offensive to eradicate the militants in Iraq.
