BAGHDAD (AP) - Islamic State group militants shot and killed 36 Sunni tribesmen, women and children in public Monday, an Iraqi official and a tribal leader said, pushing the total number of members slain by the extremists in recent days to more than 200.
Sheik Naim al-Gaoud, a senior figure in the Al Bu Nimr tribe, said the militant group killed 29 men, four women and three children, lining them up in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of Ramadi in Anbar province.
The tribal leader said that 120 families were still trapped there.
"These massacres will be repeated in the coming days unless the government and its security forces help the trapped people," al-Gaoud said.
An official with the Anbar governor's office corroborated the account of Monday's killings. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief journalists.
Some Sunnis in Anbar province supported the militants when they seized Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in December. That came after widespread Sunni protests against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad for what they described as second-class treatment.
At least 214 members of the Al Bu Nimr tribe have been killed recently by the Islamic State group. Analysts believe IS may be trying to take revenge for the tribe's siding with Iraqi security forces and, in the past, with U.S. forces. The killings are also likely intended as a warning to other Sunni tribes.
A number of Sunni tribes have played an important role in stalling the IS advance across Iraq, taking up arms and fighting alongside Iraqi security forces. A U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes is targeting the group as well, with nine strikes hitting its fighters Sunday and Monday in Beiji, Fallujah and Ar Rutbah, U.S. Central Command said.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the reported massacres of the Al Bu Nimr tribe and other attacks on Shiite pilgrims "proves once again that ISIL does not represent anything but its warped ideology," using an acronym for the Islamic State group.