Obama Says Mission to Help Refugees on Mount Sinjar Is Over

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday (August 14) that the Islamist militant siege of Iraq's Mount Sinjar had been broken and most of the U.S. military personnel sent to assess the situation would be pulled out of Iraq in the coming days. Obama, in a briefing to reporters, said he did not expect the United States to have to stage an evacuation of the mountain, where thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority had been trapped by militants, or to continue humanitarian airdrops.