Baghdad (AFP) - As Iraq seeks support from powerful tribal leaders against the Islamic State group, the jihadists have launched a campaign of mass killings aimed at sowing enough fear to warn them off.

But while the massacre of members of the Albu Nimr tribe may make it harder for Baghdad to gain more tribal support, tribesmen are still fighting and the killings could yet backfire by encouraging resistance.

The Sunni extremist IS spearheaded a major militant offensive in June that overran much of the country's Sunni Arab heartland, and the government needs the help of influential tribes to regain it.

It is important for Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's government to bring the tribes on side not only for military and intelligence support, but also as a show of inclusion to Sunnis, whose anger over marginalisation by the Shiite-dominated authorities has helped IS.

In recent weeks, Abadi has held a series of meetings with tribal leaders in both Iraq and neighbouring Jordan.

"Abadi believes that the role of the tribes is fundamental and key in fighting terrorism," Rafid Juburi, the spokesman for the premier's office, told AFP.

"Communications with the tribal sheikhs are continuing and the prime minister received at least five tribal delegations from Anbar and Mosul and Salaheddin in two weeks," Juburi said, referring to areas where IS holds territory.

- 'Kill us with silence' -

In one televised meeting, Abadi told tribal leaders: "We are ready for your requests for weapons and ammunition."

But IS, a ruthless group that has repeatedly carried out atrocities, has struck back at tribal enemies, launching a campaign of executions targeting the Albu Nimr tribe in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

The tribe has members in both the security forces and anti-jihadist Sahwa militia, and has fought against IS.

IS has executed hundreds of men, women and children from the tribe in recent weeks, a slaughter that Baghdad was unable to stop.

The full death toll remains unclear, but some sources have said more than 250 tribe members have been killed, while others have estimated the toll to be double that figure.

Photos have circulated online apparently showing the aftermath of some of the killings.

One shows a line of more than 30 men in civilian clothes lying in the middle of a street with streams of blood running over the dusty ground, as young men and children look on.

One tribal leader, Sheikh Naim al-Kuoud al-Nimrawi, criticised the government for failing to act.

"We asked... Haidar al-Abadi and his deputy Saleh al-Mutlak to offer help for our tribe, without any result," he told AFP.

"The homes of the tribes are occupied and their people are occupied -- how did they help us?"

Even Sunni religious leaders were not speaking out against the executions, Nimrawi added, saying they "kill us with their silence".

Lawmaker Ghazi Faisal al-Kuoud, another leader of the tribe, later said that Abadi met with its chief and has agreed to provide weapons and send forces to Anbar to help it.

The killings -- and the government's inability to stop them -- may hurt its attempts to win tribal support.

"This will definitely complicate government and US efforts to bring other tribes on board in the fight against the group," said Kawa Hassan, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

- 'Surrender not an option' -

The executions are not only about killing enemies, Hassan said, but "to say to Sunnis the government is weak and cannot protect anti-IS Sunnis, (that) the army is demoralised."

He said the campaign did seem to be deterring Sunnis. "But for how long? This is the big question."

It may in fact have the reverse effect, said Nathaniel Rabkin, the managing editor of the Inside Iraqi Politics newsletter.

"It is of course bad news for the government side to have its supporters massacred," Rabkin said, but the Albu Nimr "appear to still be fighting in other areas of Anbar."

"And there are reports this week that the government has distributed arms to thousands of fighters from the (Albu) Nimr and other tribes," he said.

"If anything, the brutality of the atrocities... may serve to convince other tribes on the pro-government side that when facing (IS), surrender is not an option," Rabkin said.

Sheikh Omar al-Alwani, a leader from the Albu Alwan tribe in Anbar, agreed.

"There were those who believed that the (IS-led) war was taking place to bring victory for the Sunni people, but they are (now) sure that what is happening is a massacre against the Sunni people," Alwani said.

He said that some tribesmen even came back from the relative safety of Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region to fight, and that the government has distributed arms.

"All the tribes in Anbar were united against this crime," Alwani said.

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Flash Points: Despite cease-fire, Ukraine tension continues

By Natalia Zinets and Vladimir Soldatkin

KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ukraine's military accused Russia on Friday of sending a column of 32 tanks and truckloads of troops into the country's east to support pro-Russian separatists fighting government forces.

Thursday's cross-border incursion, if confirmed, is a significant escalation of a conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people since the separatists rose up in mid-April and would call into question Russia's commitment to a two-month-old ceasefire deal.

The truce has looked particularly fragile this week, with each side accusing the other of violations after separatist elections last Sunday condemned as illegitimate by the West.

"Supplies of military equipment and enemy fighters from the Russian Federation are continuing," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told a briefing in Kiev, describing a column that included 16 big artillery guns and 30 trucks carrying troops and ammunition as well as 32 tanks.

He said five Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the past 24 hours although Kiev has denied rebel charges of launching a new military offensive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin summoned security chiefs on Thursday to discuss the deteriorating situation but announced no new moves afterwards.

Although Russia blames the crisis on Kiev and the West, NATO says it has overwhelming evidence that Russia has aided the rebels militarily in the conflict and it has left Moscow's relations with the West at their lowest ebb since the Cold War.

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FILE: Pro-Russian separatists stand in formation in front of a Soviet World War Two T-34 tank, as th …

A NATO military officer said on Friday the alliance had seen an increase in Russian troops and equipment along the border and was looking into reports of Russian tanks crossing into eastern Ukraine.

"If this crossing into Ukraine is confirmed it would be further evidence of Russia's aggression and direct involvement in destabilizing Ukraine," he said.

Russia denies arming the rebels but the ceasefire deal reached in the Belarussian capital, Minsk, now looks in tatters.

"The President noted a significant deviation from the implementation of the Minsk protocol, which is leading to further escalation of the conflict," a statement on the Ukrainian presidential website said after President Petro Poroshenko spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone.

Although Russia did not respond to Kiev's latest accusations, it said it still supported the ceasefire deal.

"We support the continuation of the Minsk process and advocate holding another meeting of the Contact Group (of negotiators)," Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said. "But not everything depends on us. There are a lot of factors."

RISING TENSIONS

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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R-L) speaks with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's State D …

Russia denies direct involvement in the conflict but stoked tensions by annexing the Crimean peninsula in March after the overthrow of a Moscow-backed president in Kiev.

The rebels rose up weeks later in the mainly Russian-speaking east and Western governments have imposed sanctions which have aggravated an economic downturn in Russia, whose rouble currency is in sharp decline.

The increase in tensions stems from Sunday's leadership elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics", which the West and Kiev say violated the Minsk agreements.

The Ukrainian government responded by revoking a law that would have granted the rebel-held eastern regions much more autonomy and would have provided them with cash.

With tension rising and Western pressure mounting on Russia not to recognize the separatist votes, Ushakov reiterated that Moscow respects the will of the voters but stopped short of using the word "recognize" for the votes.

"These are different words," he said. "The word 'respect' was chosen deliberately."

His words could be intended to appease the West, which has threatened to impose new sanctions if the crisis persists.

Some Western leaders fear Putin wants to create a "frozen conflict" in east Ukraine which would end Kiev's ability to control affairs there and allow Moscow to maintain influence as well as complicating Kiev's efforts to join mainstream Europe.

Putin has not commented on the separatist votes, held one week after a parliamentary election in other parts of Ukraine which cemented Poroshenko's grip on power by increasing support for him in the assembly.

Despite the tensions over Ukraine, the Russian leader will attend two summits in Asia in the next 10 days which offer a chance for talks on the crisis.

Ushakov said Putin would hold face-to-face talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande during a G20 summit in Brisbane on Nov. 15-16.

Putin will also meet International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an Asia-Pacific summit in Beijing on Nov. 10-11.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will also meet in Beijing on Saturday, before the summit starts. No talks are scheduled between Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama although Washington and the Kremlin have not ruled out an informal conversation on the summit sidelines.

(Additional reporting by Alessandra Prentice and Richard Balmforth in Kiev and by Katya Golubkova and Timothy Heritage in Moscow; writing by Timothy Heritage)

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President orders postelection surge, seeks $5.6 billion for campaign

In a dramatic post-election surge, President Barack Obama is doubling the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 3,000 and asking Congress for $5.6 billion for the war against the so-called Islamic State, officials said Friday. Obama aides denied that the timing was political or that the escalation amounted to "mission creep."

The Pentagon said the new forces would deploy to Iraq “in a noncombat role, to expand our advise-and-assist mission and initiate a comprehensive training effort for Iraqi forces.”

It was the second major announcement regarding Obama’s undeclared and open-ended campaign against the extremist group since Tuesday’s elections. After months of rejecting calls to seek new war-making authority from Congress, Obama reversed course on Wednesday.

The U.S. Central Command overseeing the campaign will use some of the funds to set up two “advise-and-assist operations centers” outside Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurd capital of Irbil. It will also set up sites across Iraq for training 12 brigades of local forces, including nine from the Iraqi army and three of Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

A senior administration official, speaking to reporters on a conference call arranged by the White House, denied that the new deployment amounted to “mission creep” or that the announcement had been timed for after the election to minimize the political fallout.

“Even with these additional personnel, the mission is not changing,” the official said, stressing that U.S. ground troops will not be going “back into combat.”

“We are keeping the limiting factor on the mission, we are adding personnel to better carry out the mission, and to support the Iraqis as they move forward with their campaign plan,” the official said.

As for any suggestions that the timing of the announcement was political, the official said “it really was not driven at all by the political calendar.”

Asked whether Obama had set a ceiling on the number of troops he was willing to deploy to Iraq, the official demurred.

“In terms of numbers, I don’t think we want to specify that we’re going to be steady at a very specific number,” the official said. “I’m not anticipating there being additional requirements on the horizon, in terms of personnel, but I also don’t want to suggest that we’re going to set a specific ceiling.”

But, he added: “We’ll assess whether there need to be additional advisors based on judgments on the ground going forward.”

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Nigerian troops have been accused of killing 16 Boko Haram suspects, raising fresh concerns about the conduct of the military and the civilians supporting the battle against the militant group.

Earlier, vigilantes claimed to have beheaded dozens of Islamist fighters in the country's far northeast.

Boko Haram, meanwhile, is reported to have begun enforcing strict Islamic law by amputating the hands of thieves and razing churches in a captured town it renamed as part of its self-styled caliphate.

On Wednesday, 21 civilians were killed after Boko Haram fighters clashed with troops in the restive northeast of Nigeria, a local lawmaker said.

The incidents have undermined repeated government claims of a ceasefire and peace talks.

In Potiskum, 16 men who were arrested after morning prayers on Wednesday were found dead in a morgue with bullet wounds just hours later, community leaders and hospital staff told AFP.

Locals in the Dogo Tebo area of the city believed the men were picked up and killed because all of them were from the Kanuri ethnic group that forms the bulk of Boko Haram's membership.

"All the bodies have gunshot wounds on them," said a nurse at the Potiskum General Hospital, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The bodies had been brought in by soldiers and were formally identified by community leaders, he told AFP.

On Monday, at least 15 people were killed and some 50 others were injured in a suicide bombing targeting a major Shia Muslim festival in Potiskum, which is Yobe state's commercial capital.

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The leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau (C) delivers a speech as shown …

A number of others were killed when troops deployed to the scene opened fire, the head of the Shia community, Mustapha Lawan Nasidi, said at the time.

The latest deaths were described by another community leader as "cold-blooded murder" while residents expressed concern about the fate of a Muslim cleric and three others who were also detained.

- Beheading claims -

Neither the military in Yobe or the capital, Abuja, responded to AFP when asked for comment and there was no word either on claims from Biu in neighbouring Borno state about the beheadings.

A member of the civilian vigilante group, Umar Hassan, said they and troops ambushed Boko Haram fighters last Friday as they prepared a raid on Sabon Gari village in the south of the state.

"We killed 41 of them and decapitated them and brought the heads to Biu, which we displayed to people to demystify Boko Haram," he said.

Two Biu residents said the vigilantes put the heads on wooden spikes and drove around the town, telling people the Islamists did not have magical powers.

"It was like hunters displaying their game after a hunting expedition," said, one, Silas Buba.

The incidents will add to concerns of human rights groups about the response of the military and the vigilantes, both of whom have been accused of atrocities in the past.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said they were aware of the reports and were investigating the authenticity of the claims.

"This is the latest in a string of abuses in which pro-government vigilante groups have been implicated," said HRW's Nigeria researcher Mausi Segun.

- Amputations -

Boko Haram took over the town of Mubi in Adamawa state last week and residents who fled the town in recent days said they had now renamed it Maidanatul Islam, or "City of Islam" in Arabic.

In Mubi, Boko Haram chopped off the hands of 10 men accused of theft last Friday and burnt down churches, said Ahmad Maishanu, who fled Mubi on Wednesday.

In a video released on October 2, Boko Haram showed the stoning to death of a man accused of adultery, a man having his right hand cut off for theft and a young man and woman given 100 lashes each for sex outside marriage.

The group, which wants to create a hardline Islamic state in Nigeria's northeast, is now thought to control at least two dozen towns in the region.

The Nigerian government and military made a surprise announcement on October 17 that it had secured a ceasefire deal with the militants and peace talks were being held.

But there has been no let-up in the violence since then and last Friday the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, dismissed claims of an end to hostilities as "a lie".