The scope of American involvement—or potential involvement—in Iraq was a muddled picture on Thursday. The New York Times reported that, according to Kurdish officials, the U.S. bombed at least two targets in northern Iraq on Thursday, a claim the Pentagon said was false. The White House, however, said it was considering airstrikes, as well as humanitarian airdrops in the Kurdish north of the country increasingly under siege by ISIS militants. ABC News is now reporting the humanitarian aid drops have already begun. Here’s more:
The United States is sending cargo planes to drop pallets of humanitarian aid and supplies to stranded Iraqi citizens threatened by the militant Islamic group ISIS, the White House announced today… The emergency effort is being deployed to help a group of 40,000 Yazidis, a group of ethnic Kurds, who fled villages in northern Iraq under threat from ISIS. The Yazidis fled to the Sinjar Mountains, in a remote part of northern Iraq near the border of Syria, where they are stuck without food or water while ISIS forces are gathered at the base of the mountains.
Along with the aid, U.S. officials said “the likelihood President Barack Obama will authorize airstrikes as increasing,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
