WASHINGTON — Finally, a glimmer of good news from Iraq.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said late Wednesday that U.S. air strikes had helped to drive vicious jihadists from a mountain where tens of thousands of persecuted Iraqis had taken refuge, allowing most of the refugees to escape.
Only a few thousand of the refugees remained stranded — far fewer than first thought — and they appeared to be in relatively good shape, reducing the likelihood of a U.S. rescue mission, Hagel said.
The optimistic report came after 12 to 20 U.S. military personnel landed on the mountain to assess the situation and evaluate how to best conduct a military evacuation.
“As a result of that assessment, I think it’s most likely, far less likely now, that we would undertake any kind of specific humanitarian rescue mission that we have been planning,” Hagel told reporters in Washington before adding, “That doesn’t mean that we won’t.”
Iraq remains a troubled country, Hagel said, but he called the assessment from Mount Sinjar a welcome development. Of the U.S. effort in Iraq, he said: “It’s not over. It’s not complete.”
The team that landed on the mountain did not engage in combat and safely returned to the Iraqi city of Erbil.
Defense officials said the air strikes, which President Obama authorized late last week, and fighting by Kurdish troops, helped to push back the bloodthirsty jihadists with the Islamic State, or ISIS.
And airdrops of food and water by U.S. military aircraft over the last week helped to sustain the refugees until they could safely evacuate, Hagel said.
Earlier Wednesday, it appeared that a rescue mission was near to save the refugees, mostly members of the persecuted Yazidi religious sect.
Obama was said to be considering two basic options — airlifting the refugees or creating a safe-passage corridor for them.
Either option would require placing U.S. troops on the ground — and, potentially, into harm’s way.
“There needs to be a lasting solution that gets that population to a safe space where they can receive more permanent assistance,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis, along with some Christians and other Iraqi minorities, were chased onto the mountain nearly two weeks ago by the rampaging ISIS fighters.
The extremist group considers Yazidis devil worshipers, and has been trying to convert or kill them.
Experts said any deployment of U.S. personnel would increase the risk of contact with jihadist fighters and casualties caused by accidents. The fatal crash Tuesday of an Iraqi military helicopter carrying aid to the Yazidis highlighted the danger of even limited operations.
“Accidents happen in war zones,” said Austin Long, an assistant professor at Columbia University who studies military operations.
“The other way is that the Islamic State has mortars and artillery — so even U.S personnel miles behind the front line could be killed.”
Both Britain and France pledged Wednesday to step up their own efforts to assist in the rescue of the surrounded civilians.
France will send arms to Iraq’s Kurds, French President Francois Hollande announced.
And Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain announced his country will play a role in an international rescue mission saying details “are now being put in place.”
The United Nations declared the humanitarian crisis a “Level 3 Emergency” — its highest designation — triggering additional goods, funds and assets to respond to the needs of those displaced, said UN Special Representative Nickolay Mladenov, who pointed to the “scale and complexity of the current humanitarian catastrophe.”
The UN said it would provide help to those who have escaped Sinjar and to 400,000 other Iraqis who have fled since June to the Kurdish province of Dahuk.
Others have fled to other parts of the Kurdish region or further south. A total of 1.5 million have been displaced by the fighting since the jihadists captured Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June and quickly overran other parts of the country.
Meanwhile, momentum was building to force the ouster of Iraq’s divisive prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
Even Saudi Arabia and Iran — regional rivals often bitterly divided over Iraq — said it’s time for Maliki to go.
Obama said Maliki must step down to improve the chances of Iraq’s religious factions uniting behind the government. Such unity is essential, Obama maintains, for Iraq to take on the ISIS threat.
With Joel Siegel and News Wire Services
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