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Williams. Good evening. Brian has the night off. Im lester holt. If theres anything weve learned as a nation at war for the past 13 years, it is that events on the ground can change rapidly and so can the mission. Today, the United Nations declared a refugee crisis in iraq. A level 3 emergency, its highest level. Late this afternoon we learned u. S. Special forces landed on an iraqi mountain top to assess the feasibility of a military rescue mission. Thousands of yazidi civilians are stranded there under threat by islamic fighters. It was less than a week ago the u. S. Began humanitarian air drops and limited air strikes against isis targets inside Northern Iraq. And now tonight a possible large scale refugee evacuation is on the table. We get to keir simmons with the latest on iraq in a moment, but first to the pentagon and nbcs jim miklaszewski. Reporter good evening. Theres ....
Today its been declared a level three emergency and weve learned u. S. Forces landed on a moub mountain top. As weve been reporting, thousand of civilians are stranded there under threat by islamic fighters. It was less than a week ago u. S. Began humanitarian air drops and limited air strikes against icy targets. We begin tonight at the pentagon and jim miklaszewski. Good evening. Reporter good evening. Theres late word that those u. S. Forces have flown off the mountain and safely back at their base. But based on what they saw, the pentagon says a full blown rescue mission is now far less likely. For 24 hours two teams of u. S. Special forces were atop the sinjar mountain with thousands of yazidi refugees have been trapped, many dying of thirst or starvation. The heavily armed green berets were there to assess what it would take to complete a rescue mission, to get the refugees off the mountain in the safest way possible. U. S. Officials say early assessments are encouraging. Intelli ....