AL MAR OIL FIELD (Syria): US-backed forces fighting the militant Islamic State group in Syria said on Thursday they have freed 24 of their fighters held by IS, and uncovered a mass grave near the last pocket of territory held by the extremist group.

Adnan Afrin of the Syrian Democratic Forces said the grave unearthed a few days ago outside the village of Baghouz contains the remains of men and women but said the number of bodies and their identities remain unclear.

“Investigation is still underway to determine their nationality and the manner of killing,” said Afrin, adding they were looking into reports that they may be Yazidis or IS fighters.

A video published by Kurdish-run Furat FM TV station published on Wednesday showed several bodies dug out from a pit mostly women and children.

A Furat FM TV station executive, Salah Youssef, said those in the mass grave appear to have been shot in the head. He said authorities are investigating whether the bodies are those of women and children who had refused to stay under IS rule and were shot as they tried to escape, or belonged to IS fighters who were killed during battles with the SDF. Youssef said there are reports of more than one mass grave.

The Kurdish-led SDF has been locked in a standoff with a few hundred IS militants holed up in Baghouz with civilians. The militants are besieged in a small sliver of land along the Euphrates River with dwindling food and medicine, and many of them have so far refused to surrender.

Thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, have evacuated the area in the past few weeks on foot, many saying they had paid smugglers to get out.

But for the past week, trucks have brought out in intermittent batches hundreds of civilians, mostly members of IS families and wounded men, in an organised evacuation amid a truce in the fighting.

The SDF said the presence of civilians and hostages among the IS fighters has delayed a final military push by the SDF to uproot the militants from their last corner in Syria the final redoubt of the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate that once stretched across much of the country and neighbouring Iraq.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2019