Iraq's national security adviser briefed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on efforts to counter Islamic State on Tuesday, Syrian state media reported, the first such meeting since the United States launched air strikes on the radical group in Iraq.

The United States and other Western governments have dismissed the idea of cooperating with Syria in the fight against Islamic State, which has seized large areas of both Iraq and Syria. Western governments see Assad as part of the problem and say he must leave power.

Faleh al-Fayad, the Iraqi official, "put Assad in the picture of the latest developments in Iraq and the efforts that the Iraqi government and people are making to combat the terrorists", the Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

The meeting stressed "the importance of strengthening cooperation and coordination between the two brotherly countries in the field of combating terrorism that is hitting Syria and Iraq and which threatens the region and the world", SANA said.