The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria recently executed at least 220 Iraqi men from a tribe opposing its takeover of territory west of Baghdad, according to Reuters.
Two mass graves were discovered Thursday containing men, aged between 18 and 55, of the Sunni Muslim Albu Nimr tribe. The men were affiliated with the Awakening, a militia group created by the U.S. during the 2006-2007 “surge” to combat al Qaeda in Iraq.
70 men were dumped at one grave near the town of Hit in Iraq’s Anbar province. Another mass grave in the same province, near the city of Ramadi, contained the bodies of 150 more tribesmen.
They had all been shot at close range, witnesses said.
“Early this morning we found those corpses and we were told by some Islamic State militants that ‘those people are from Sahwa, who fought your brothers the Islamic State, and this is the punishment of anybody fighting Islamic State,’ ” a witness told Reuters.
Iraqi forces said Thursday they were closing in on the city of Baiji from two sides in an attempt to break the Islamic State’s siege of the country’s biggest refinery.
