ISIS terrorists made a new attempt to overrun the besieged eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor yesterday — but beleaguered government troops clung on.

Isis cut the city off from its lifeline airport to the southeast at the weekend, leaving its 200,000 inhabitants with the choice between slow starvation or butchery at the hands of the death cult.

Yesterday Isis fighters attacked the Panorama and Harabish areas of the city in a bid to widen the gap between the airport and residential areas but were beaten back.

An attempt by troops in the airport to break the encirclement on Tuesday night failed, despite support from roundthe-clock air strikes.

But air-force helicopters were able to reach the city yesterday morning, bringing desperately needed reinforcements and evacuating the wounded.

By Tuesday night 76 of the city’s defenders had been killed. The army claimed about 200 Isis zealots were dead.

The terrorists’ breakthrough was made possible by September’s hour-long series of strikes by the US-led bombing coalition on Syrian army positions on Thardeh mountain, overlooking the airport.

Isis had gunmen ready to storm the mountain as soon as the attack was over, indicating co-ordination with the coalition.

Isis laid siege to the city in July 2014 after driving the alQaida affiliated Nusra Front out of the province it had gradually overrun since July 2011.

In the west of Syria, Russian general staff Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi said that Russian and Turkish jets had carried out the countries’ first joint raid against Isis targets on the outskirts of al-Bab, north-east of Aleppo.

Syrian troops continued to advance south of the town yesterday after breaking through Isis lines there on Tuesday. The advance could help secure industrial zones in the northeast of Aleppo city.

And troops were at the gates of Ayn al-Fijah in the Barada valley, where Nusra extremists had cut off the water supply to 5.5 million people in Damascus and surrounding areas.

A Syrian delegation including UN ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari left for Astana in Kazakhstan, where Russian Turkish-brokered peace talks are set to begin next week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the US, excluded from the ceasefire negotiations, could, in principle, attend.

But Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad said participation by Saudi Arabia and Qatar could only be discussed when they stop supporting, funding and arming terrorists.

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