Bloomberg quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Fellow Faysal Itani on the Yezidi community in Iraq that is currently under threat by the militant Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham:
Attacks by U.S. warplanes against the Islamist insurgents began yesterday, after Obama invoked the need to prevent a massacre of the Yezidis. Thousands from the community have been driven from their homes and are stranded on a mountain near the Iraqi town of Sinjar at the Syrian border, where the U.S. and Turkey are seeking to deliver aid.
“They are an esoteric sect,” whose plight represents a “ compelling story” that helped spur Obama to intervene, said Faysal Itani, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.