US team assess Mount Sinjar situation...Iraq

The UN says the crisis has displaced more than a million Iraqis

A US military team in Iraq has flown to Mount Sinjar in the north, where tens of thousands are trapped, to assess the situation, officials say. Defence officials said the operation took place earlier on Wednesday, and all personnel had now returned safely to their base in Irbil. The US has sent hundreds of military advisers to Iraq to help people fleeing militant group Islamic State (IS). IS fighters have seized large swathes of northern Iraq in recent months. Tens of thousands of people from religious minorities have been forced to flee their homes.

Wednesday's operation at Sinjar was focused on assessing whether to try to evacuate those trapped on the mountain, US officials said. It was a team of 20, all of whom were US Special Forces, and the operation lasted less than 24 hours. The US military said it is considering airlifts and the creation of safe passages for fleeing civilians - but insists no US ground forces will be in a combat role.
The UN says members of the Yazidi sect are among those who are stranded in desperate conditions on Mount Sinjar.

 

Displaced Yazidis have been trying to flee to safety

The US has been carrying out air strikes on IS targets

Kurdish forces are to receive military aid from the US and France

On Wednesday, the UN declared the Iraq crisis a "level three emergency", its highest level of humanitarian crisis. Planes have been dropping aid supplies on Mount Sinjar for several nights - but US officials said this was not sustainable.
"There needs to be a lasting solution that gets that population to a safe space where they can receive more permanent assistance," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said. The US has also continued to conduct air strikes on IS targets in Iraq's north.
France says it will arm Iraq's Kurds, who are already getting US military aid to fight IS. The US, UK and France have pledged to send more aid and equipment to Iraq. The UN estimates that 1.2 million Iraqis have been internally displaced by the crisis. Kurdish officials in the province of Dohuk say that there are about 150,000 refugees in the area, overwhelming the local population who were trying to feed them.
The rapid advance across Iraq by IS militant fighters has thrown the country into chaos. IS overran Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, in June. Its fighters had taken the central city of Falluja and parts of nearby Ramadi in December 2013. On 29 June, IS said it had created a caliphate, or Islamic state, stretching from Aleppo in Syria to the province of Diyala in Iraq.
The jihadist group, previously called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), was formed in April 2013, growing out of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group has gained a reputation for brutal rule in the areas that it controls, and has since been disavowed by al-Qaeda. It is one of the main jihadist groups fighting government forces in Syria and Iraq.