Islamic State
militants have killed 322 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar
province, including dozens of women and children whose bodies were
dumped in a well, the government said in the first official confirmation
of the scale of the massacre.The systematic killings, which one
tribal leader said were continuing on Sunday, marked some of the worst
bloodshed in Iraq since the Sunni militants swept through the north in
June with the aim of establishing medieval caliphate there and in Syria.
The
Albu Nimr, also Sunni, had put up fierce resistance against Islamic
State for weeks but finally ran low on ammunition, food and fuel last
week as Islamic State fighters closed in on their village Zauiyat Albu
Nimr.
"The number of people killed by Islamic State from Albu
Nimr tribe is 322. The bodies of 50 women and children have also been
discovered dumped in a well," the country's Human Rights Ministry said
on Sunday.
One of the leaders of the tribe, Sheikh Naeem
al-Ga'oud, told Reuters that he had repeatedly asked the central
government and army to provide his men with arms but no action was
taken.
State television said on Sunday that prime minister
Haider al-Abadi had ordered air strikes on Islamic State targets around
the town of Hit in response to the killings.
Officials at a
government security operations command center in Anbar and civilians
reached by Reuters said they had not heard of or witnessed air strikes.
The
fall of the village dampened the Shia-led national government's hopes
the Sunni tribesmen of Anbar - who once helped US Marines defeat
al-Qaida - would become a formidable force again and help the army take
on Iraq's new, far more effective enemy.
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