U.S. airdrops food aid to Iraqis trapped after fleeing militants - LA Times

U.S. airdrops food aid to Iraqis trapped after fleeing militants - LA Times: "In recent days, thousands of members of the Yazidi sect fled towns in northern Iraq that were taken over by fighters from the Islamic State, the Sunni Arab militant group that has seized control of large parts of northern and western Iraq, as well as about a third of neighboring Syria.

The Yazidis, as well as many Iraqi Christians, moved into Kurdish-held areas of Iraq to escape the militants. But about 40,000 remain trapped on Mt. Sinjar and are in extremely dire circumstances, according to Kurdish officials and international relief groups.

The Islamic State, a breakaway Al Qaeda group, said its forces had overrun more than a dozen towns and other objectives, including the Mosul dam, Iraq's largest, in an offensive that began Saturday. The militants were reported to be engaging Kurdish forces known as peshmerga just 30 miles southwest of Irbil, capital of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region."



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