MacBook Air Backlight not Working / connection shorted to ground

MacBook backlight isn't working and after consuming hours of repair content and checking the board I dared to start removing possibly faulty parts from the board, but I'm kinda Stuck.

The first thing that struck me when taking it apart was the connector being broken or burned

My hope was that it was just the cable, so I bought a new one and tested and of course it didn't work

I proceeded some testing and I found the backlight fuse was blown and also the backlight Pins on the LCD connector are shorting to ground.

I was just about to just reassemble the MacBook without screen and just use it that way when I reminded my self that webcam and antennas would be gone then, so I said F it and started removing parts.

I started with the backlight IC (U7701 or LP8550 don't know how it's called the software saiys 7701 but Google only shows 8550 when searching) And also removed the backlight fuse.

However the backlight pins are still shorted to ground and now I'm afraid to remove too many parts that aren't the cause.

Do you have any ideas what could be the cause of the short and what needs to be replaced?

Here are some pics of the board. There's just nothing there that looks burned or damaged to me.