Iraqi Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, Turkmen

"Amerli is besieged from all sides and calls for help are falling on deaf ears."
Iraqi lawmaker Fawzi Akram Al-Tarzi

"We are starving, we ran out of food and the only clinic is not functioning now due to lack of medicines."
Jaafar Kadhim Al-Bayati, 41, Amerli father of three

Earlier in the week a pregnant woman in labour died after she was brought to the town's clinic, when there was no one in the medical facility to help her. The northern town is under siege, it has been for months. The residents have been deprived of water and electricity. The army did drop some weapons, food and medical supplies from the air recently, but the Islamic State jihadis who have encircled the town for months possess shoulder-mounted missiles they target at planes.

On guard: Iraqi security forces and Turkmen Shi'ite fighters hold a position in Amerli earlier this month as ISIS fighters pushed towards their town

The town is comprised of minority Iraqi Shiites, Turkmen, doubly detested by the Sunni besiegers. Situated about 170 kilometres north of Baghdad, according to Mr. Al-Tarzi who is pleading with the United Nations, the United States, the Iraqi government to rescue the vulnerable 15,000 residents who have been courageously fighting back, desperate to survive the merciless onslaught of the terrorists. The Turkmen are skilled fighters and they are holding off the terrorists, for now.

The Amerli Turkmen, like the Iraqi Christians and Yazidi Kurds have been targeted for elimination by the Islamic State jihadists who hold them in deadly contempt as apostates. Since ISIS took possession of the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit and the countless towns and villages in the area, thousands of Turkmen have been made homeless along with Christians and Yazidis.

On the run: Yazidi Iraqis cross into the mountains of North Kurdistan after escaping ISIS from Mount Sinjar following U.S. air strikes. The residents of Amerli are campaigning for a similar rescue plan from the West

A four-day airlift using Boeing 747 planes to bring in aid from Aqaba, Jordan, to the northern Kurdish region of Iraq, mounted by the UN refugee agency, holds out hope for Amerli and other towns, home to Iraqi minority populations that they might somehow find it possible to escape death, or manage to break out of the encirclement to add to the 1.5-million Iraqis forced to flee their homes.

"The situation in Amerli has been ongoing and known for a couple of days now. However, amid the scale of the horrors that we have witnessed in recent days, it has not made it into the headlines.
The situation is similar to the one on Sinjar mountain in that civilians are trapped and are under direct threat of starvation.
Again, the total numbers of those besieged cannot be verified, but it is estimated a few thousand are trapped.
Unlike the Yazidis, though, the Shi'ite Turkmen are not seen as a minority in Iraq, but are regarded by the West as part of the wider Shi'ite majority in the country.
The fact that these individuals are on the radar of al-Sistani (senior Iraqi cleric) means that the situation has the attention of the Iraqi government. Yet, they are incapable to do anything. Those trapped are being protected by Shi'ite volunteers and militia men who have joined the ranks of Iraq's Armed Forces.
As the Shi'ite Turkmen are not seen as a minority, the situation is not being portrayed by the Western media as ethnic cleaning.
The encirclement and siege of Yazidi civilians, however, was portrayed as exactly that. Nonetheless, for IS both groups, Yezidis and Shi'ites, are seen as infidels worth killing. In both cases IS does not have any respect for human life and is ready to kill both civilians and combatants. For the West, it remains difficult to escalate the situation further.
U.S. air strikes could, however, bring short-term relief for those trapped as a significant force-multiplier for these Shi'ite volunteers on the ground. The U.S. could easily extend its area of operations to the Amerli area and strike IS there. Particularly since the James Foley (executed U.S. journalist) video, Western attitudes towards IS in the US and the UK have changed.
There has been a slight shift of foreign and security policy outlook to the crisis now as intelligence and defence circles push for a more proactive commitment to the crisis while warning of the direct threat IS poses to the US and the UK. It might be rhetorical prelude to an extension of the US's area of operations and UK commitments to propping up the Kurds. The U.S. could do something with air strikes without significantly extending its commitment.
It would all be covered by the US mandate in Iraq. An evacuation operation with boots on the ground, however, will not happen soon unless public pressure in the West rises. Nobody wants to return to the quagmire on the ground that was Iraq until 2011 - neither Western publics nor Western policy makers."   Andreas Krieg, Middle East security expert, King's College London, Qatar