Obama, Hollande agree on int'l response to help trapped Iraqis

WASHINGTON (Xinhua) - US President Barack Obama spoke with his French counterpart Francois Hollande about the latest developments in Iraq on Saturday and they agreed on the need for an urgent international response to the humanitarian disaster in Iraq.

Obama and Hollande, in a phone call, underscored the serious threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) poses to all Iraqi communities throughout the country, and discussed the need to support the Iraqis by increasing their ability to counter these extremists, the White House said in a statement.

In what the leaders called a "humanitarian disaster," tens of thousands of Iraqi are trapped on Mount Sinjar by the Islamic militants, dying of heat and thirst. US aircraft have been airdropping water and food for the Iraqi minorities.  

The two presidents also discussed the targeted strikes that the Unites States is undertaking to protect US personnel and prevent ISIL's advance on Erbil, the Iraqi Kurdish capital, and agreed to work together on a longer term strategy to counter ISIL, it added.

Obama said on Saturday that US airstrikes have destroyed arms and equipment that insurgents could have used to attack Erbil, but he declined to give a timetable for the current military operation he authorized on Thursday.