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Article snippet: AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar — Secretive drones and surveillance jets are boring down on an estimated 3,000 remaining Islamic State fighters, who are hiding in Syria along a short stretch of the Euphrates River and surrounding deserts, as the American military campaign against the extremist group enters its final phase. But the focus on a 15-square-mile enclave near the Iraqi border is complicated by skies congested with Russian, Syrian and Iranian aircraft as rival forces converge on that last main pocket of Islamic State militants in Syria. “It drives up the complexity of the problem,” Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, the air commander for Syria and Iraq, said of the increasingly risky airspace and near collisions, in an interview at his headquarters at this sprawling air base outside Doha, the capital of this tiny Persian Gulf nation. With names like Joint Stars and Rivet Joint, the American spy planes are trying to track the last Islamic State fighters and top leaders, eavesdrop on their furtive conversations, and steer attack jets and ground forces to kill or capture them. The three-year American campaign has largely achieved its goal of reclaiming territory in Syria and Iraq, and the Islamic State’s religious state, or caliphate, appears all but gone. Still, senior military commanders and counterterrorism specialists caution that the organization remains a dangerously resilient force in Iraq and Syria, and a potent global movement through its call to arms to foll... Link to the full article to read more