BEIRUT: Kurdish-affiliated authorities said on Thursday they had found the remains of almost 30 bodies in a mass grave in northern Syria, with a war monitor saying they were likely killed by jihadists.

“At least 29 bodies, including those of a woman and two children, have been found in a mass grave,” near a hotel in Manbij, said an official of the Kurdish-affiliated Manbij civilian council.

The militant Islamic State group had turned the hotel in a prison when it ruled the northern city between 2014 and 2016.

The mass grave was unearthed on Wednesday by municipal workers who were doing work on the sewerage system, according to the Manbij military council.

Some of the decomposed remains were found handcuffed and blindfolded, it said.

The military council said it was unclear when they were killed, but that it was during IS rule of Manbij.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the remains are believed to belong to people abducted by IS fighters.

US-backed Kurdish-led forces took control of Manbij in 2016, after ousting the jihadists from the city.

Dozens of mass graves have been found in Iraq and Syria but the identification process is slow, costly and complicated.

IS seized large swathes of Iraq and Syrian territory in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” and killing thousands before they were detained.

One of the biggest alleged IS mass graves contained 200 bodies and was discovered in 2019 near Raqa, the group’s former de-facto capital in Syria.

Rights groups have repeatedly called on Kurdish authorities and the Syrian government to investigate the fate of thousands who went missing during IS rule.

The missing include British reporter John Cantlie and Italian Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio.

Syria’s war, which erupted in 2011 after the brutal repression of anti-government protests, has killed nearly half a million people and forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.

17 killed in clashes

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the southern Syrian province of Sweida in clashes in between armed residents and gangs aligned with the security agencies, activists and local media said on Thursday.

The Druze-majority province has remained mostly shielded from the bloody conflict that ravaged the rest of the country since 2011 but sporadic rallies have taken place over deteriorating economic conditions.

Residents had also been growing increasingly frustrated at government-backed fighters carrying out arbitrary detentions, random roadblocks and kidnappings for ransom, said Rayan Maarouf, an activist and head of the Suwayda24 local media outlet.

At the weekend, the detention of one resident prompted others to set up informal roadblocks and detain members of government-backed gangs and besiege their bases, Suwayda24 reported.

“This uprising flared up very suddenly and there were attacks on the bases of these armed groups, which are reinforced with heavy weapons,” Maarouf said.

The resulting fighting left 17 people dead according to Sweida’s health directorate, which was cited by both Suwayda24 and the pro-government Al-Watan newspaper on Thursday.

The Syrian government has not commented on the violence but Al-Watan said the fighting had quietened and negotiations over a settlement were underway.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2022