US considers air strikes and air drops to help Iraqis trapped on mountain by Isis
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Source: Guardian
The Obama administration is considering US air strikes and humanitarian air drops to help besieged religious minorities chased up a mountain by militants in Iraq.
The move comes as Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian city, was all but abandoned as the jihadist group Islamic State (Isis) advanced through minority communities in the country's north-west and towards the Kurdish stronghold of Irbil.
The US military is already helping the Iraqi government coordinate air drops of vital supplies to at least 40,000 Iraqis, mostly from the Yazidi minority, trapped on top of Mount Sinjar in the north after death threats from the Islamists who have overrun much of Sunni and northern Iraq.
Internally, the Obama administration was said to be urgently debating providing direct follow-on steps, to include humanitarian air drops for Yazidis suffering without food or water, and even air strikes – a fateful step that US president Barack Obama has been reluctant to take during the rise of Isis.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/us-aid-iraqi-trapped-mountain-isis
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