HIT, Iraq, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Around 50 members of a Sunni tribe in Iraq's Anbar province were executed by Islamic State militants for resisting the extremist group.
Officials and tribal leaders told the BBC that the men and women were from the Al Bu Nimr tribe, a Sunni group that had joined forces with the Shia-dominated Baghdad government against IS.
They were forced to flee their homes as IS forces took ground in cities such as Hit. Several members of the tribe were also reportedly found in a mass grave last week.
The Anbar province was one of the most volatile during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, with American forces seeing heavy resitance from Sunni insurgents in cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah. The Iraqi government has acknowledged the need to ally with Sunni tribes from the area in the war against IS, and such retaliatory killings are belived to be part of a strategy to intimidate Anbar's Iraqis from doing so.
IS, which consists mainly of Sunni Muslims, is well-known for using executions as a terror tactic. Two American journalists and two British aid workers were beheaded in videos posted by the group, and Human Rights Watch reported Thursday an incident from June in which IS militants executed roughly 600 Shia men from a prison near Mosul.
On Friday the U.S. Department of Defense reported gains by Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi security forces against IS positions all over Iraq. With the help of coalition airstrikes, Iraqi security forces made progress southwest of Baghdad and assaulted IS militants in Amiriyah.
Peshmerga forces captured the town of Zumar, south of Mosul, and Syrian Kurdish forces continued to battle IS fighters in Kobani on the Syria-Turkey border. Coalition airstikes there destroyed several IS positions.
"Despite these positive developments, it is important to point out that ISIL remains a very determined enemy," Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said, refering to another name for the group, which is also called ISIS and Daesch.
