HARDAN, Iraq (AP) - Peering through binoculars, the young man watched as Islamic State terrorists gunned down the handcuffed men and then buried them with a waiting bulldozer. For six days he watched as the extremists filled one grave after another with his friends and relatives. Between them, the two scenes of horror on Sinjar mountain contain six burial sites and the bodies of more than 100 people, just a small fraction of the mass graves Islamic State extremists have scattered across Iraq and Syria. (Kurdish Mass Graves Directorate via AP)

In exclusive interviews, photos and research, The Associated Press has documented and mapped 72 of the mass graves, the most comprehensive survey so far, with many more expected to be uncovered as the Islamic State group's territory shrinks. In Syria, the news agency has obtained locations for 17 mass graves, including one with the bodies of hundreds of members of a single tribe all but exterminated when the extremists took over the tribe's region. Officials do not even guess the number of dead inside at least 16 of the Iraqi graves, mostly in territory too dangerous to excavate. In others, the estimates are based on memories of traumatized survivors, Islamic State propaganda and what can be gleaned from a cursory look at the ground. The Associated Press estimated the number of known victims as between 5,200 and more than 15,000, a figure the agency described as staggering. Sinjar mountain is dotted with mass graves, some in territory clawed back from IS after the group's onslaught against the Yazidi minority in August 2014; others in the deadly no man's land that has yet to be secured. On Sinjar Mountain, Rasho Qassim drives daily past the mass grave in Hardan that holds the bodies of his two sons. The road is in territory long since seized back, but the five sites are untouched, roped off and awaiting the money or the political will for excavation, as the evidence they contain is scoured away by the wind and baked by the sun. "We want to take them out of here. There are only bones left. But they said 'No, they have to stay there, a committee will come and exhume them later,'" said Qassim, standing at the edge of the flimsy fence surrounding one site, where his two sons are buried. But proving what United Nations officials and others have described as an ongoing genocide — and prosecuting those behind it — will be complicated as the graves deteriorate. “We see clear evidence of the intent to destroy the Yazidi people,” said Naomi Kikoler, who recently visited the region for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. “There’s been virtually no effort to systematically document the crimes perpetrated, to preserve the evidence, and to ensure that mass graves are identified and protected.”

Then there are the graves still out of reach. One site outside the Badoush prison in Iraq is believed to contained the bodies of 600 inmates killed by the militants in their summer 2014 rampage. A patch of scraped earth and tire tracks show the likely killing site, according to exclusive photos obtained by the imagery intelligence firm AllSource Analysis. According to survey report, smallest grave contained the remains of three bodies, and the largest one is believed to contain the remains of thousand victims. Through his binoculars, Arkan Qassem watched it all. His village, Gurmiz, is just up the slope from Hardan, giving a clear view over the plain below. When the jihadis swept over the area, everyone in Gurmiz fled up the mountaintop for refuge. Then Arkan and nine other men returned to their village with light weapons to try to defend their homes. The Islamic State targeted the Yazidis for slaughter because it considers them heretics. The first night, Arkan saw the militants line up a group of handcuffed men in the headlights of a bulldozer at an intersection, less than a kilometer (half mile) down the slope from Gurmiz. They gunned the men down, then the bulldozer plowed the earth over their bodies. Over six days, Arkan and his comrades watched helplessly as the fighters brought out three more groups of men — several dozen each, usually with hands bound — to the crossroads and killed them. Two years later, the 32-year-old has since returned home, living in an area dotted with mass graves. As documented by the aid group Yazda, which has mapped the Sinjar sites, the graves are in a rough pentagon flanking the crossroads, largely unprotected. "I have lots of people I know there, mostly friends and neighbors," he said. “This is a drop in the ocean of mass graves expected to be discovered in the future in Syria,” added the survey report.
Thousands of Yazidi are believed to be buried in 72 newly-discovered mass graves left by ISIL after the 2014 massacre.