ANJAR, Lebanon – Lebanese forces excavated a suspected third mass grave yesterday, a day after unearthing 25 decomposed corpses in an eastern town that was the headquarters of Syrian intelligence for three decades.
Security forces were digging for more bodies at the third site near two other mass graves close to an old onion farm in the eastern town of Anjar, notorious for long use by Syrian intelligence as an interrogation center.
Security sources said the 25 bodies found so far – most now only skeletons – had lain in the shallow graves for more than 12 years but it was not clear who they were and how they died, though one wore military trousers.
The finds are the first that were directly linked to Syria's 29-year military presence, which ended in April, though the bodies of 13 Lebanese soldiers killed during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war were exhumed from Defense Ministry grounds at Yarze last month.
They are believed to have been killed when Syria routed the forces of former Gen. Michel Aoun at the close of the war.
Lebanese Internal Security Forces said residents of the eastern area on Anjar, near the border with Syria, had led them to the unmarked graves.
The remains were sent to laboratories for DNA testing.
There has been no Syrian reaction to the discoveries.
Mayor Shaaban al-Ajami, of the nearby town of Majdal Anjar, said he believed up to 40 bodies were buried in the area.
