Bassem Mroue
BEIRUT.- Activists working to uncover mass graves in northeastern Syria -a region until recently controlled by the Islamic State group- need help to preserve evidence, identify human remains and shed more light on the unspeakable horrors perpetrated by the militants during their reign there, an international watchdog said Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch said thousands of bodies — both of civilian victims brutally slain by the extremists and of IS fighters themselves — remain to be recovered in several mass graves scattered around the city of Raqqa and nearby areas. According to remnants of clothing on them, some of the bodies already found are thought to be of IS militants.

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The appeal came in a new report released Tuesday by the New York-based group.

Local members of the Raqqa Civil Council are "struggling to cope with the logistical challenges of collecting and organizing information" on the bodies uncovered and providing it to families searching for missing or dead relatives, HRW said.

Raqqa was the extremists' de facto capital and the seat of their self-proclaimed caliphate —from which IS ruled the territories it controlled— lands that at the height of the militants power in 2014 amounted to a third of both Syria and Iraq.

The caliphate and the contiguous territory under IS crumbled in October last year.

The extremist group, which attracted fighters from around the world, ruled the area with a mix of terror, fear and brutality. It carried out atrocities and mass killings, often in public beheadings, burning, drowning or blowing up victims who were strapped with explosives beforehand.

Women and men under IS rule who were charged with adultery were stoned to death, while gay men were thrown from the tops of buildings, their crushed bodies subsequently pounded with stones.

U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish-led fighters and Syrian government forces have captured most of the once IS-controlled lands in Syria and the extremists are now squeezed in small patches, scattered in eastern Syria.

In neighboring Iraq, government forces, backed by the U.S.-led coalition and Shiite led militia groups, announced the full defeat of IS shortly after capturing the militants' stronghold of Mosul last year, Iraq's second-largest city.

Human Rights Watch underscored that identifying missing people and preserving evidence for possible prosecutions is critical for Syria's future.