Islamic State militants have killed 25 members of a Sunni Muslim tribe during their assault on a provincial capital west of Baghdad, local officials said on Saturday, in apparent revenge for tribal opposition to the radical Islamists.

They said the bodies of the men from the Albu Fahd tribe were discovered after the army launched a counter-offensive against the Islamic State in a village on the eastern edge of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province.

The killings echoed the execution of hundreds of members of the Albu Nimr tribe last month by Islamic State fighters trying to break local resistance to their advances in Anbar, a Sunni Muslim province they have largely controlled for nearly a year.

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