Report: Mass grave found in Syria's Palmyra after city recaptured from Islamic State

Grave contains remains of many women and children.

By REUTERS
Arch of Triumph, Palmyra, Syria (photo credit: REUTERS)
Arch of Triumph, Palmyra, Syria
(photo credit: REUTERS)
BEIRUT - Syrian troops found a mass grave containing around 40 bodies in Palmyra city, captured from Islamic State last Sunday, Syrian state news agency SANA said on Friday.
SANA said the grave, which contained many women and children, was in the north-eastern edge of Palmyra. Some of the bodies had been beheaded.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the five-year-old Syrian conflict through a network of sources on the ground, said that Islamic State had killed a number of people at an earlier time and buried them on the outskirts of the city. 
Syrian government forces recaptured Palmyra on Sunday inflicting a significant defeat on the Islamic State group which had controlled the desert city since May last year.
For government forces, the recapture of Palmyra, following a three-week campaign by Syrian government forces backed by intensive Russian air strikes, opens up much of Syria's eastern desert stretching to the Iraqi border to the south and Islamic State heartland of Deir al-Zor and Raqqa to the east.