SYRIAN and allied forces claimed new victories against Isis and the US-backed opposition along the southern border yesterday.

The official Sana news agency said troops had struck north from the Iraqi border to al-Dolei’yat, taking control of the oil pipeline to Iraq between the T3 pumping station east of Palmyra and the T2 station in Deir Ezzor province.

And another thrust across the eastern desert brought the army to the outskirts of T2 and the air base there.

A military source told Lebanon’s Al Masdar News the goal of the offensive was the town of Abu Kamal on the far eastern border with Iraq.

The latest advances further isolated the illegally occupied US and British base at the al-Tanf border post with Iraq where the Western allies have been supporting Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters trained and armed in neighbouring Jordan.

The FSA — a ragbag of opposition forces that includes jihadist extremists — has tried several times in the last year to seize Abu Kamal and the oil-rich Deir Ezzor province without success.

Sana reported President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had defeated FSA attacks in Beir al-Kassab and Rajem al-Sarikhi in the east of Rif Dimashq province, north-west of al-Tanf, inflicting serious losses in men and vehicles.

Later Lebanon’s Shi’ite Islamist organisation Hezbollah, Syria’s staunch ally, said its guerillas and Syrian troops had advanced two miles south of Rajem al-Sarikhi.

US forces made no move to intervene in the battle as they had done recently when they bombed army, Hezbollah and Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Unit volunteers advancing on al-Tanf recently.