The Syrian Army has reached the last extremist-held town on the road to its besieged garrison in the east, a monitoring group said on Friday.
Government forces are on the outskirts of Sukhneh, some 70 kilometres northeast of the famed ancient city of Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The town is the last on the desert road to the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, where a government garrison has held out under siege by Daesh (ISIS) since early 2015.
Sukhneh and the oil and gas fields in the surrounding countryside have been held by Daesh since 2015.
"Heavy fighting is ongoing between the two sides, with regime artillery and rocket fire," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He said Russian warplanes were supporting the government advance.
Daesh commanders fled into the surrounding mountains as the army neared the town, he added.
Since May, the Army has been conducting a broad military campaign to recapture the vast desert that separates the capital Damascus from Deir al-Zor and other towns along the Euphrates Valley.
Already defeated in its Iraqi bastion of Mosul, Daesh is facing multiple assaults in Syria.
The U.S.-backed Syrian Defence Forces now control more than half of its most important remaining stronghold Raqqa.
