...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS).
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, liberated Manbij from the terrorist organization in 2016 following fierce battles.
Following its liberation from ISIS, the Arabs, Kurds, Circassians and Turkmen, who constitute the fabric of Manbij, established their own administration under the name of Democratic Civil Administration of Manbij and its Countryside to run the affairs of their region. Then, this administration joined the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
On Wednesday, municipality workers, while cleaning a sewer, stumbled upon the bodies of three men handcuffed and blindfolded.
After that, a more extensive search was done, making the final toll 29 bodies.
In its Sunday’s statement, the Civil Administration in Manbij, affiliated with the AANES, suggested that the bodies belong to civilian prisoners during ISIS reign over the city.
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defeated ISIS militarily.
After ISIS took control of Manbij in early 2014, it carried out a campaign in which it arrested hundreds of the city’s residents on various charges, and took the basement under al-Madina hotel as a prison for it. It also conducted mass executions of prisoners and buried them in mass graves, according to residents of the area.
The administration condemned the massacres carried out by the holy warrior group against the residents. The deputy head of the Interior Board in Manbij Abdulkarim al-Bakkar said, "It is a massacre against humanity and shows the brutality of the organization."