IS 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 on Saturday, in apparent revenge for tribal opposition to the radical group.
They said the bodies of the men from the Albu Fahd tribe were discovered by the Iraqi army when it launched a counter-offensive on Saturday against IS near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, Reuters reported.
Last month IS 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.
IS, which has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, continues to gain territory in Anbar despite three months of US-led air strikes launched against the group.
On Friday it launched coordinated attacks in central and outlying areas of Ramadi in an attempt to take full control over a city which is already mostly in its hands.
The road from Ramadi to the military air base of Habbaniya, about 25 km (15 miles) to the east, remained under Islamic State control on Saturday, preventing the army from reinforcing security forces in the city.
In northern Iraq, a farmer near the city of Mosul discovered around 60 bodies believed to be those of prisoners killed by IS fighters when they overran the city’s Badush prison on June 10, witnesses said on Saturday.
The bodies were found after heavy rain disturbed their mass grave. The United Nations said up to 670 prisoners from Badush were killed by IS five months ago.
