President Obama authorizes targeted air strikes, humanitarian aid drops in Iraq

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he had authorized “targeted” U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq and military airdrops of humanitarian supplies to besieged religious minorities there to prevent a “potential act of genocide.”

Speaking after meetings with his national security team, Obama – in his most significant response to the Iraq crisis – said he approved limited use of American air power to protect American personnel if Islamic State militants advance toward the Kurdish capital Arbil where they are based.

The airstrikes would be the first carried out by the U.S. military in Iraq since the withdrawal of its forces at the end of 2011, but Obama insisted he would not commit any ground forces and had no intention of letting the United States get dragged back into a war there.

Obama took action amid international fears of a humanitarian catastrophe engulfing tens of thousands of members of Iraq’s minority Yazidi sect driven out of their homes and stranded on Sinjar mountain under threat from rampaging militants of Islamic State, an al Qaeda splinter group. Many Iraqi Christians have also fled for their lives.

“We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide,” Obamas told reporters at the White House. “I’ve therefore authorized targeted airstrikes if necessary.”

In addition to the threat of air strikes, Obama said that U.S. cargo planes had dropped supplies to the refugees in the area of Mt. Sinjar, in northern Iraq, who, he said, faced the risk of imminent starvation. The supplies were dropped near an area that some Iraqi minorities call home in the far northwest of the country.

“Today, America is coming to help,” Obama said. But he repeated his vow that no American combat troops would be sent back to Iraq.

“As Commander in Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq,” Obama said.

But, he added, “when we face a situation like we do on that mountain” where thousands of women and children are in danger and the U.S. has “unique capabilities to avert a massacre,” the country should act and not “turna blind eye” to sufferig.

The fighters of the Islamic State a Sunni militant group that has seized control of large parts of northern and western Iraq, have particularly targeted Iraqi Christians and the Yazidis, a pre-Islamic sect, Obama said.

They have threatened to wipe out the Yazidis entirely, “a threatened act of genocide,” that the U.S. can act to prevent, he said.

In a statement issued shortly before Obama spoke, Pentagon officials said that U.S. planes had dropped “critical meals and water for thousands of Iraq citizens threatened” by the fighters in a mountainous area near the Iraqi town of Sinjar.

“The aircraft that dropped the humanitarian supplies have now safely exited the immediate airspace over the drop area,” the statement said. Pentagon officials said they would release additional information about the airdrops later Thursday evening as the situation on the ground in Iraq became clearer.

In recent days, more than 100,000 members of the Yazidi sect fled towns in the north that were taken over by fighters from the Islamic State.

The Yazidis, as well as many Christians, moved north 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 U.S. airdrops are designed to deliver emergency supplies to those refugees in an effort to stave off what White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest earlier in the day described as a potential “humanitarian catastrophe.”

President Obama has also been considering airstrikes against the Islamic State fighters. No airstrikes have taken place, Pentagon officials said Thursday, denying some news reports.

Los Angeles Times and Reuters contributed