"We do not rule out the possibility of carrying out preventive strikes on terrorist bases at any location in the world," Ivanov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying in an address to Russian military-diplomatic officials here.

"The only limit is exclusion of strikes with nuclear weapons," he said.

Ivanov referred to UN Security Council resolution 1566 stipulating that any country had the right to protect itself against the threat of terrorism and said that "a legal basis for carrying out such strikes exists today."

"Russia," he said, "is far from being the only country to announce its readiness to carry out preventive strikes on terrorist bases."

Without directly naming the United States, he said that "precedents have already been set in Afghanistan and Iraq" for such pre-emptive military action. Washington has carried out what it described as preventive anti-terror military strikes in both countries.

Ivanov's comments came three months after Russia's chief of staff, General Yury Baluyevsky, made a similar announcement as he met in Moscow with NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, General James Jones.

"We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region" in the world, Baluyevsky said on September 8.

Those comments, made in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan school hostage tragedy and a string of attacks that rocked Russia just before it, raised some concern over the new direction in Russian defense policy.

But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw expressed support for the new doctrine, calling it "understandable."

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