US launches aid drops in northern Iraq
AMERICA last night launched a humanitarian airdrop mission in Iraq, a senior US official confirmed.
“An effort has begun,” the official told CNN. Planes were in the air, the official said, but they had not yet started dropping aid.
The source added that the C-17 and C-131 aircraft had fighter jets for protection.
The aid drops came amid a growing humanitarian crisis in northern Iraq, with minority groups such as Yazidis, Kurds and Christians facing slaughter by Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).
Earlier yesterday, an official said President Barack Obama was also considering airstrikes.
However, reports that these had already begun were denied by a Pentagon spokesman.
“The latest news just might meet the threshold for action,” the official said as reports emerged of thousands of families from the Yazidi minority trapped without food, water or medical care in the summer heat after fleeing the rampaging Islamist fighters.