SYRIA’S army recaptured territory from Isis south-east of Raqqa on Saturday night.

The army’s special forces also seized an oil field in al-Sabkhawi gas field and the town of al-Dakhila on the Euphrates river as part of the advance, according to the official Sana news agency.

But sources within the army told Al Masdar News yesterday that they had since pushed further east to Shamiyah, just 25 miles northwest of the Isis-besieged city of Deir Ezzor.

The capture of al-Dakhila, southeast of Raqqa, gives the army access to a major road along the south bank of the Euphrates — and heads off further eastward advances by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Speaking to a conference of Middle Eastern communist parties in London on Saturday, journalist Ali Orken said the US was “forcing” the SDF to block the army’s campaign to take Deir Ezzor.

Mr Orken, a reporter for the Turkish Communist Party’s newspaper Sol who previously reported on the Syrian conflict for national daily Hurriyet, said the Deir Ezzor campaign was seen as the “final phase of the war.”

He added that while the US was the main sponsor of jihadi groups, its Free Syrian Army (FSA) proxies were “not interested in fighting Isis” — as the Pentagon claims.

On Saturday, the FSA rejected a truce covering the East Ghouta area on the outskirts of the capital Damascus.

The Syrian army called a ceasefire from noon after the Russian Defence Ministry announced the signing of a deal in Cairo to allow aid in and civilians out.

In Paris earlier this month US President Donald Trump revealed Washington and Moscow were discussing a truce in a “very rough part of Syria” — in addition to north-western Idlib and southern Daraa.

But in a statement the FSA called the deal “one-sided” and said it was not a party to the talks.

A Syrian military source said operations against the FSA and its al-Qaida affiliated allies would continue.