BREAKING VIDEO for the BOG from an entry posted to the White House Blog:

[freshwest]

10. UPDATE:

20,000 Iraqis besieged by Isis escape from mountain after US air strikes
Yazidi minority surrounded by Islamist militants on Mount Sinjar escorted back to Iraqi Kurdistan after fleeing via Syria

Haroon Siddique - 10 August 2014

Shawkat Barbahari, an official from the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, said 30,000 people had escaped to Syria and then been escorted back into Iraqi Kurdistan by Kurdish forces. A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Iraq said officials had been reporting to the UN that 15,000 to 20,000 people had escaped the siege. Fears had been growing for the civilians, mostly Kurds of the Yazidi faith, trapped on Mount Sinjar in north-west Iraq in the searing summer heat with little to eat or drink.

The breakthrough coincided with US air raids on Isis fighters in the Sinjar area on Saturday. Barack Obama, who sanctioned the air strikes on Friday, has said the US is in it for the long-haul, warning "this is going to take some time".

Barbahari, who is in charge of the Fishkhabur crossing with Syria, told AFP: "The Kurdish peshmerga forces have succeeded in making 30,000 Yazidis who fled Mount Sinjar, most of them women and children, cross into Syria and return to Kurdistan. Most of them crossed yesterday and today, this operation is ongoing and we really don't know how many are still up there on the mountain."

Iraqi MP Vian Dakhil, who is from the Yazidi minority, said 20,000 to 30,000 had managed to flee the mountain they ran to a week ago when militants overran the Sinjar region and were now in Iraqi Kurdistan. "The passage isn't 100% safe," she said. "There is still a risk."

More at link:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/10/iraq-yazidi-isis-jihadists-islamic-state-kurds/print

to rollin74:

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/1014867084#post1

From thread by flamingdem:

Kurdish forces claim to recapture 2 Iraqi towns from IS with US air support

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/1014867084