Alva Review-Courier -

BEIRUT (AP) — With new losses, the Islamic State group has been driven from more than 96 percent of the large parts of Iraq and Syria it once held, crushing its goal of establishing a "caliphate" that challenges existing borders.

The militants are left fighting for a final stretch inside Syria and desert regions along the Iraq-Syria border. Three years ago, they had defiantly erased that line, knocking down berms marking the frontier.

Since then, they have lost infrastructure, resources, supply routes, control over about 8 million people and — most importantly — administration of a contiguous...