SYRIA: Two mass graves found in Ayn Issa countryside containing bodies of Syrian Army soldiers killed by ISIS in 2014

AYN ISSA, Syria —In the village of Al-Farhaniyah in the countryside of Ayn Issa, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) of the of North and East Syria discovered two mass graves containing the remains of an estimated 55 members of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

More than six years after members of the Seventeenth Brigade of the SAA in Raqqa were killed by the Islamic State (ISIS), the graves containing their bodies have been located.

On Wednesday, 14 bodies were exhumed from the first mass grave, including several members of the Ninety-Third Brigade. The Public Relation Office of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) handed the bodies over to Syrian regime forces stationed near Ayn Issa.

The exhumation of the second grave, estimated to contain 40 bodies, was postponed to Thursday.

Local sources reported that the bodies were secretly buried in the graves by the residents of the area, after they were killed by ISIS.

The Seventeenth Brigade was besieged by ISIS for a year and a half before the latter managed to take control of the Brigade’s headquarters in July 2014.