MOSCOW, November 4 (RIA Novosti) — The Iraqi government has confirmed the scale of a massacre of Sunni tribesmen and their families by Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq’s western Anbar province, with the death toll now estimated at 322 people, Reuters has reported.
On Sunday, sources said that 67 men from a Sunni tribe which had supported the Baghdad government were rounded up and killed by the IS. The Iraqi government has now confirmed that the figure has risen to 322, including over 50 women and children. The bodies of the victims were said to have been dumped into a local well, the government said.
The Albu Nimr tribe in the village of Zauiyat Albu Nimr, 200 kilometers west of Baghdad, had fiercely resisted ISIS for several weeks before running out of ammunition and supplies last week. One of the tribe’s leaders had repeatedly asked the Iraqi government and army for help, but to no avail, Reuters said.
Eighty percent of Iraq’s sparsely populated, predominantly Sunni province of Anbar is now under the control of IS.
The Islamic State has been known to carry out mass executions in areas which resist their rule, with Xinhua reporting a massacre last week of 255 tribesmen of the anti-al-Qaeda Sahwa “Sons of Iraq” group in Anbar. Reuters reported 75 more tribesmen executed on Sunday near the town of Haditha.
