US Considers Airstrikes In Iraq As Islamic Militants Target Christians,

               An image uploaded on June 14, 2014 on the jihadist website Welayat Salahuddin allegedly shows militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) executing dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province. (AFP Photo)
100,000 Christians Flee Iraqi Homes Due To ISIS Militants Attack

President Barack Obama is actively considering ordering US intervention, including air-strikes, against Islamist militants in Iraq attacking Christian and religious minority groups in the north of the country, administration officials have said.

The potentially sharp reversal of US policy came as Islamic State (formerly ISIS) militants continued to make significant gains on Thursday including claiming to have seized control of Iraq’s largest dam, giving them control of vast water and power resources and access to the river that runs through the heart of Baghdad.

“The situation is nearing a humanitarian catastrophe,” warned Josh Earnest, White House spokesman, “We are gravely concerned for their health and safety.”

Mr Obama spent yesterday morning conferring with his national security team. Administration officials said he was considering a full range of “active and passive” options - from humanitarian air-drops to targeted air-strikes - with a decision expected imminently. “This could be a fast-moving train,” one official told The New York Times.

“The cold and calculated manner in which (Islamic State) has targeted defenceless Iraqis, like the Yazidis and Christians, solely because of their ethnic and religious identity demonstrates a callous disregard for human rights and it is deeply disturbing,” the White House spokesman added.

“In particular, we’re concerned about the welfare of the large community of Iraqi Yazidis who are stranded on Mount Sinjar without food, water or shelter and the Iraqi Christians who have been force to flee from their villages in the region.”

Officials stressed that any military action would be “very limited in scope”, aimed at objectives such as “protecting American personnel or confronting counter-terrorism threats”.

When Islamic State militants swept through central Iraq in July, at one point threatening Baghdad, Mr Obama denied requests from the Shia-led Iraqi government of Nouri Al-Maliki to strike them.

The apparent change of heart came as reports of the plight of the Yazidi minority hit America’s front pages, triggering calls for action from leading figures such as Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate.

Calling reports of Islamic State advance “deeply disturbing” Mr McCain accused the Obama administration of failing to act against an organisation that, he said, now posed a “direct threat” to US national security.

In its crushing victory on Thursday, fighters of the Islamic State jihadist group swept aside resistance to seize the last remaining Christian towns of northern Iraq,

The seizure of the Christian towns followed an abrupt withdrawal by the Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, that had pledged to defend them. “The Peshmerga withdrew - they didn’t tell us what happened, or why that happened,” Fr Yousef said. “It’s strange that an army could collapse all of a sudden just in some areas.

“The Peshmerga used to tell us that they would protect us, that our district’s security was as firm as Dohuk’s. That lasted for two months. They were fighting before but we don’t what happened yesterday.”

That collapse in Kurdish morale followed a similar withdrawal at the weekend from towns occupied by the Yazidi community, another religious minority who unlike the Christians are ethnically Kurdish. Thousands of Yazidis, who are termed devil-worshippers by the Islamic State, are stranded in the desert mountains south of the town of Sinjar, with some children already succumbing to dehydration and the heat.

Attempts to rescue them by a combined force of Peshmerga and guerrillas from the Kurdish regions of Syria and Turkey have so far failed.

The Islamic State posted a message on its social media pages celebrating its victories, saying it had taken 17 towns and cities and the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest, in five days. By taking the towns of Bartella and Qaraqosh, they were able to move to about half an hour’s drive from Erbil.