ESCAPE

Kurds Rescue 5,000 Yazidis from Mountain

Says Kurdish army spokesman.

According to a Kurdish army spokesman who spoke with Al Jazeera, their forces have opened a road to Sinjar Mountain and rescued more than 5,000 of the Yazidis who are trapped there after fleeing from ISIS fighters. “I can confirm that we succeeded in reaching the mountains and opening a road for the refugees,” said the spokesman, Halgord Hikmet, who explained that the U.S.’s recent airstrikes on ISIS allowed peshmergas to open a route to the mountain. In a statement on Saturday, President Barack Obama said that the U.S. was proud to be working alongside allies in Iraq during the airstrikes and as in the process of reaching the Yazidis trapped on the mountain.