Iraqi warplanes have begun targeting militants besieging the Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli amid growing fears for the safety of thousands of residents short of food and water and facing a “massacre”.
With some 12,000 Turkmen trapped in the northern town, US President Barack Obama is “nearing a decision” to authorise strikes and aid drops in the area, The New York Times reported.
The report added that Obama is also seeking to piece together an international coalition for potential military action in Syria, where the US has begun reconnaissance flights.
And nine countries have committed to providing arms to Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga forces, who are fighting in north and east Iraq against Islamic State militants leading a sweeping offensive that has overrun large areas of the country.
Iraqi warplanes carried out nine air strikes on Tuesday against the militants besieging Amerli, an officer said.
Helicopters delivering aid and ammunition to the area are targeted with machine gun fire on the way in, and mortar rounds once they land, said Nihad al-Bayati, who worked as an engineer at the Tikrit oil refinery but is now fighting to protect his hometown.
“The pilots are suicidal,” he said, but the aircraft have been able to land and depart so far.
Time is running out for Amerli’s residents, who face danger both because of their Shiite faith, which the militants consider heresy, and their resistance against them, which has drawn deadly retribution elsewhere.
There is “no possibility of evacuating them so far”, and only limited humanitarian assistance is reaching the town, said Eliana Nabaa, the spokeswoman for the UN mission in Iraq.
UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov has called for an urgent effort to help Amerli, saying residents who have been under siege for more than two months face a “possible massacre” if it is overrun.