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Article snippet: BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Islamic State militant, his AK-47 cradled between his legs, crouched next to the driver in the front of the bus, near a placard in the windshield that read B-9, which stood for bus No. 9 out of 17. The flash of a camera in the early dawn light showed him to be smiling broadly. How his fortunes have fallen since the photo was taken on Monday, when it looked like the convoy of buses carrying more than 300 retreating fighters was safely on the road to territory controlled by the Islamic State. Now the buses are trapped in the Syrian desert with nowhere to go, chased at every turn by American bombers determined not to let them rejoin the fight. As the Islamic State, also known as Syria, the stranded buses have become a striking metaphor for the militants’ stalled campaign. This week, the Islamic State lost Tal Afar, one of the last cities it controlled in Iraq, less than two months after being expelled from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. In Syria, the once formidable caliphate is in danger of losing Raqqa, its self-styled capital, to American-backed forces there. And it has likewise been powerless to save the convoy, sending fighters and fuel trucks into the desert only to have them destroyed by American forces. Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the American-led coalition in Syria and Iraq, said recent airstrikes had killed 50 ISIS fighters and destroyed 20 vehicles sent to rescue the convoy, including fuel trucks apparently sent to refuel... Link to the full article to read more