Syrian troops have so far identified 45 bodies in a mass grave found in the city of Palmyra after it was recaptured from Islamic State.

Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State out of Palmyra last Sunday, inflicting what the army called a mortal blow to militants who had dynamited the city’s ancient temples.

• Syrian army recaptures Palmyra from Islamic State
• Air strike takes out Islamic State deputy
• At least 65 dead, 300 injured in suicide blast

The communal grave, on the northeastern edge of Palmyra, is the only one found so far in the city by the Syrian forces, a military source said.

It held the bodies of both civilians and Syrian army members captured by Islamic State.

Syrian state news agency SANA said on Friday the grave contained many women and children and some of the bodies had been beheaded.

In May last year, as Islamic State took control of Palmyra, the hard-line Islamist militants were reported by Syrian state media to have killed at least 400 people in the first four days of control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the five-year-old Syrian conflict through a network of sources on the ground, said that Islamic State had killed a number of people at an earlier time and buried them on the outskirts of the city.