BREAKING: President Obama authorizes airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS.
Breaking: 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, said U.S. officials.
Air strikes by the Iraqi military have also started.
ISIS has overtaken much of the northern part of Iraq, including the city of Mosul. People are being told by ISIS ‘Convert to Islam or Die’.
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.