ISIS kills 85 more members of Iraqi tribe

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants have executed 85 more members of the Albu Nimr tribe in Iraq in a mass killing campaign launched last week in retaliation for resistance to the group’s territorial advances, a tribal leader and security official said on Saturday.

Sheikh Naeem al-Ga’oud, one of the tribe’s leaders, told Reuters that ISIS killed 50 displaced members of Albu Nimr on Friday. In a separate incident, a security official said 35 bodies were found in a mass grave.

The sustained bloodshed shows how the al Qaeda offshoot has proven resilient despite U.S. airstrikes against militant targets in parts of Iraq and Syria it controls.

It has been killing at will, with no signs that Iraq’s armed forces will come to the tribe’s rescue anytime soon.

Members of the Albu Nimr tribe had held out for weeks under siege by ISIS fighters in Anbar Province to the west of Baghdad, but finally ran low on ammunition, fuel and food.

Hundreds of tribal fighters withdrew and hundreds of members of the tribe fled their village. ISIS rounded many up and shot them at close range. Over 300 people have been executed since the killing began in the middle of last week.