Syria's Kurdish

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force has handed over to Baghdad two Islamic State militants suspected of involvement in mass killings of Iraqi soldiers in 2014, a war monitor said Friday.

The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came a day after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said it had brought back to the country three IS members from outside Iraq. The intelligence service did not provide more details.

The Islamic State group captured an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after seizing Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in 2014. The soldiers were trying to flee from nearby Camp Speicher, a former U.S. base.

Shortly after taking Tikrit, IS posted graphic images of IS militants shooting and killing the soldiers.

Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said the U.S.-backed force handed over two IS members to Iraq. It was not immediately clear where Iraqi authorities brought the third suspect from.

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