Mass graves found in Iraq’s Anbar province

Mass graves have turned up in Iraq’s Anbar province that may contain up to 220 victims of the Islamic State group.

Reports coming out of the region indicate that the terror group killed scores of Iraqis belonging to the Albu Nimr tribe, which sided with the Iraqi government instead of the Sunni radicals of the Islamic State, BBC reported Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch reported that Anbar was also the location of a mass killing in June that may have taken the lives of up to 600 prisoners, BCC reported.

U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Thursday that the Pentagon is looking for ways to assist the tribes in Anbar with their efforts to repel the Sunni radicals. He said that if the terror group is to be defeated, then Iraqis will need to be successfully trained, advised and assisted along the way.

“You need all three of those eventually,” Dempsey said, The Associated Press reported Thursday. “That’s what we’re now beginning to explore. […] We’ve got a program in place where we’re beginning to restore some offensive capability and mindset to the Iraqi security forces. We need to think about how to do that with the tribes,” he added.