Cornered in Syria, IS lays groundwork for a new insurgency

The Islamic State gunmen came out of hiding in the middle of the night and set up a checkpoint on a rural road in eastern Syria.The incident, one of many similar ones in past weeks, sent a bigger message — the Islamic State group may have lost almost all its territory, but it hasn't left.The group's once-sprawling caliphate has been reduced to a remote scrap of land in Syria's eastern desert, where a few hundred battle-hardened fighters are making a final stand against U.S.-backed forces.