BAGHDAD: Islamic State militants have killed at least 25 members of a Sunni Muslim tribe in a village on the eastern edge of the provincial capital Ramadi, local officials said yesterday, in apparent revenge for tribal opposition to the radical Islamists.
They said the bodies of the men from the Albu Fahd tribe were discovered by the Iraqi army when it launched a counter-offensive yesterday against Islamic State near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.
“While they were combing the territories they are liberating, security forces found 25 corpses in the Shujariya area,” Hathal
Al Fahdawi, a member of the Anbar Provincial Council,
told Reuters. Albu Fahd tribal leader Sheikh Rafie Al Fahdawi said at least 25 bodies had been found and said he expected the total to be significantly higher. He said the bodies were found scattered around with no signs of weapons next to them, suggesting they were not killed during fighting. Last month Islamic State fighters killed hundreds of members of the Albu Nimr tribe in Anbar in an attempt to break local resistance to their advances in the Sunni Muslim province they have largely controlled for nearly a year. REUTERS
