The remains of thirty people, suspected of being killed by members of the Islamic State, have been found in a small town in Syria, Qatari security forces announced today.
The remains of the murdered people were found by Qatari teams and members of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which had requested the search. The Qatari statement did not specify who the US agency was looking for.
It added that DNA tests are currently being conducted to determine the identities of those found in northern Syria near the border with Turkey.
Islamic State extremists, who controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq for more than five years and declared a caliphate in those territories, have killed dozens of foreigners, including aid workers and journalists.
The Islamic State lost most of its occupied territory in late 2017, and two years later it was declared defeated.
Since then, dozens of mass graves have been discovered in northern Syria, containing the bodies and remains of people abducted by the Islamic State.
Members of the Islamic State released videos in 2014 and 2015 showing the beheading of captured people, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
Mass graves have also been found in areas previously controlled by former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in an uprising last December, ending his family's 50-year rule. The Assad family used its notorious security and intelligence services to crack down on dissidents, many of whom have disappeared.
The United Nations (UN) released an estimate in 2021 stating that more than 130.000 Syrians have been abducted or disappeared since the start of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that escalated into a civil war.
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