ISIS Extremists Execute 50: Iraqi Officials

ISIS group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 tribesmen and women in Iraq's Anbar province, officials said Saturday, the latest mass killing committed by the group.
The shooting happened late Friday in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of the provincial capital of Ramadi, Anbar councilman Faleh al-Issawi said. Militants accused the men and women of the Al Bu Nimr tribe of retaliating against them after being displaced from their homes when the group seized the Anbar town of Hit last month, al-Issawi said.

"These killings are taking place almost on a daily basis now in the areas under the control of the Islamic State group and they will continue unless this terrorist group is stopped," al-Issawi told The Associated Press.

An official in the Anbar governor's office confirmed the death toll. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to brief journalists. On Thursday, authorities found the bodies of 48 Sunni tribesmen killed by the ISIS group in Anbar.

The militant Islamist group has overrun a large part of Anbar province in its push to expand its territory, which currently stands at about one-third of both Iraq and Syria. Officials with the Iraqi government, as well as officials with the U.S.-led coalition targeting the extremists, repeatedly have said that Iraqi tribes are key elements in the fight against the Islamic State group since they are able to penetrate areas inaccessible to airstrikes and ground forces.