US ground forces fought their first direct battle against ISIS militants, Iraq's Shafaq news agency reported Dec. 16. The battle came when ISIS forces launched an attack on Ain al-Assad base, 90 kilometers from Ramadi, capital of Anbar governorate. Sheikh Mahmud Nimrawi, a local tribal leader, said that "US forces intervened because...ISIS started to come near the base." He added that he welcomed the US intervention, saying he hoped it will "not be the last." The US troops seem to have been backing up a mixed force of Iraqi government soliders and local tribal fighters. Nimrawi said that the "US promised to provide tribal fighters who are in that region...with weapons." (Shafaq News [5], Dec. 16)
The bodies of 230 people apparently killed by ISIS were meanwhile found in a mass grave uncovered by their relatives in Syria's Deir Ezzor governorate, near the Iraqi border. The discovery brings the number of Shaitat [6] tribal members slain during the ISIS' summer advance in Deir Ezzor to more than 900, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The "vast majority" were civilians, many of them summarily executed after the tribe rose up against ISIS. (AFP [7], BBC News [8], Dec. 17)
