Via Guardian:
A team of US marines and special forces landed on Mount Sinjar in Iraq on Wednesday to assess options for a potential rescue of of 30,000 Yazidi civilians threatened by Islamic extremists and worn down by lack of food.
The forces flew in on V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft that can land vertically. They joined a small number of American special forces who, the Guardian has been told, had been on the mountain for some days. That team had been assessing the military and humanitarian situation and guiding US air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) fighters encircling the mountain.
A handful of British SAS soldiers were also in the area to “gather intelligence”, a British official said. The developments were the first confirmation that international forces were on Mount Sinjar.
Fleeing Yazidis have reported seeing small teams of American soldiers high on the northern flank. “We weren’t allowed to go near them,” said a man from Sinjar who was airlifted from the former base. “They were being guarded by the Kurds.”
The US ran a military and intelligence base on a now disused-airfield at the top of Mount Sinjar for much of the Iraq war and the terrain of the rugged 45 mile ridgeline is well known to special operations units. The airfield could be used as one end of an air bridge to fly refugees to safety, if it was impossible to open a land route.