BBC:

The international campaign against the so-called Islamic State (IS) group is evolving quickly. As the United States announces a new phase in its campaign, shifting from "degrading" the so-called caliphate to destroying it, the key questions concern what the extremist group will do to thwart the campaign.

"The trend lines which were all going the wrong way are now going the right way," argues Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy or White House point man for the anti-IS battle. I recently spoke to him and Didier Le Bret, France's National Intelligence Co-ordinator, at the Aspen security conference in London. So what indicators convince them that the battle is turning?

Both cite recent territorial losses by IS, financial problems, and more effective sealing of the routes in and out of their "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria.

"It's a lot harder to get into Syria and once these guys get into Syria it's more difficult for them to get out," says McGurk. This impression is backed by Pentagon statistics released this week suggesting there are now about 200 foreign fighters reaching IS in Iraq and Syria each month compared with 1,500-2,000 a month one year ago.

Turkey says it has stopped 44,000 suspected militant sympathisers from crossing into Syria or Iraq, and the impression that domestic intelligence services in France have formed is that includes those who have failed to get in and others who have become disillusioned coming home.

"We have a lot of French people who are coming back," says Ambassador Le Bret. "They are coming back, which means that it's not like at the beginning."

A series of steps has helped to hit IS financially: oil facilities it used for income have been hit, government salaries to those in IS-held areas have been cut by Iraq and Syria, and when it comes to foreign remittances, "we think we have pretty much sliced that off," says McGurk.

As a consequence, the group has halved its fighters' pay and has tried to come up with revenue-raising schemes, from new taxes to parking tickets...

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