(Daily Mail)- The Syrian army took control of the main water pumping station for Aleppo at al-Khafsa near the Euphrates on Tuesday after Islamic State fighters withdrew, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said.
The army and its allies, backed by Russian air power, captured al-Khafsa in a recent campaign against Islamic State in the area northeast of Aleppo two months after the city's main water supply was cut off.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis sent 100,000 euros ($106,090) to the poor in the ravaged Aleppo, a Vatican spokeswoman said in a statement on Friday.
The Vatican administration, known as the Curia, contributed to the donation, which will be made through the papal charity office and the Franciscan order working in the Holy Land.
IS jihadists are facing simultaneous offensives in northern Syria by government forces, Turkish-backed rebels, and a US-supported alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.
Since the assault began in mid-January, the Syrian government has taken more than 110 villages and towns from the jihadists, advancing behind heavy air and artillery bombardment.
In the latest sign they are feeling the squeeze, IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reported to have abandoned Mosul, leaving local commanders behind to fight the Iraqi forces.
In Syria, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces has been advancing on Raqqa, another Syrian city.
The United States has been leading a coalition since mid-2014 carrying out air strikes against the jihadists in both Syria and Iraq.
Strikes on an IS-held northern Syrian village thought to have been conducted by the coalition killed at least 23 civilians on Thursday.
Among the dead were at least eight children and six women, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The coalition said this month that its raids had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians since 2014 in both countries.
Elsewhere in Syria, Turkish troops and their rebel allies have pushed south from the Turkish border and driven IS out of the northern town of Al-Bab.
Russian-backed government troops have meanwhile swept eastwards from Syria's second city Aleppo and seized a swathe of countryside from the jihadists.
The Observatory said Thursday that 17 IS fighters from Morocco were killed in intense Russian strikes in the east of Aleppo province, where the group has lost swathes of territory.
The US defence official said IS was now looking beyond the seemingly inevitable losses of Mosul and Raqqa.
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