SYRIAN troops reached the Euphrates yesterday after breaking through Isis lines east of Aleppo.

The brigade completed its march to the shores of Lake Assad, the artificial waterway formed by the Isis-held Tabqa dam further east, as the terrorist army collapsed.

The Syrian offensive took the Khafseh water pumping station, from which Isis had cut supplies to Aleppo city, after capturing 30 villages over the previous 24 hours.

The victory left the Isis-held town of Deir Hafer and the Jirah air base to its east exposed to attack.

It also secured the flank of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units south of Manbij and put Turkey and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies out of the race to Raqqa — Isis’s stronghold in Syria.

It came two days after the US Defence Department said its special forces “advisers” embedded with the Kurdishled Syrian Democratic Forces were in Manbij, just north of Khafseh, to deter Turkish and FSA attacks.

The advances have shut off the Isis underground pipeline for smuggled oil, money, arms and recruits from Turkey.

On Tuesday Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim lamented that the US is backing the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, allies of Turkey’s banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).