Sinjar mountains

Even before Americans heard their president speak last night, more than 70 bundles of food and water had been air-dropped to a group of 40,000 refugees stranded atop Mount Sinjar near Mosul, Iraq while targeted airstrikes reportedly began this morning.

McClatchyDC.com is reporting the United States officially took action yesterday to stave off a growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq where a barbaric group of Muslim terrorists known as the Islamic State (IS) have been seizing land and executing religious minorities throughout a large swath of northern Iraq. The situation came to a head recently when Christians from Mosul and Yezidi refugees from Sinjar, with no food or water, were forced into the mountains by IS terrorists who threatened to kill anyone who tried to flee. Thus far, 40 children are said to have died from dehydration.

In a nationally televised address last night, President Barack Obama announced that he had authorized an airdrop of critically needed food and water to the stranded refugees.The aid was delivered by one C-17 aircraft and two C-130s which dropped a total of 72 bundles of supplies into the area. Two F/A-18 fighter jets accompanied the cargo planes.

The supplies included more than 5,000 gallons of drinking water, which is crucial to the people's survival who are struggling to survive in the country's 115-degree heat.

The drop was said to have been completed shortly before the president addressed the public at 9:30 p.m. last night.

The president also authorized targeted airstrikes "to protect American personnel" presently residing in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. The U.S. maintains a large consulate in the city along with a newly expanded CIA station and a Joint Operations Command Center.

Even though Obama insisted that he "will not allow the United States to be dragged into another war in Iraq," he also said that the country could not stand by to watch the slaughter of so many innocent people in the region, particularly those stranded atop Mount Sinjar.

“When we face a situation like we do on that mountain -- with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help . . . and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.”

Earlier this morning, Rear Admiral John Kirby announced that U.S. military aircraft conducted a strike on IS artillery that was being used against Kurdish forces who were defending Irbil.

According to the Guardian, this strike was carried out by two F/A-18 jets launched from the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf that dropped 500 pound bombs on the "mobile artillery piece" that IS fighters were using.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has issued yet another impassioned request to the faithful around the world to "raise up with one voice a ceaseless prayer, imploring the Holy Spirit to send the gift of peace" into this troubled part of the world.

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