The Syrian military has broken a siege of the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, surrounded for years by the Islamic State group. <br/><br/>The official Sana news agency reported that troops and allied militiamen joined up with forces at the Brigade 137 base on the city's outskirts.<br/><br/>An estimated 93,000 civilians have been trapped in an enclave on the western bank of the River Euphrates since 2015. <br/><br/>They have depended on military relief flights and air drops of aid by the UN.Deir al-Zour's surrounding province is the last major IS stronghold in Syria.

The Syrian military has broken a siege of the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, surrounded for years by Islamic State. The official Sana news agency reported that troops and allied militiamen had joined up with forces at the Brigade 137 base on the city's outskirts.<br/><br/>An estimated 93,000 civilians have been trapped in an enclave on the western bank of the River Euphrates since 2015. They have depended on military relief flights and air drops of aid by the UN. Deir al-Zour's surrounding province is the last major IS stronghold in Syria.<br/><br/>Raqqa, the de facto capital of the "caliphate" proclaimed by the militant group three years ago, is under siege by a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.<br/><br/>And in neighbouring Iraq, government forces have recently driven IS militants from the cities of Mosul and Tal Afar, leaving them with only two footholds in the country.