“Airstrikes on towns in northern Iraq seized by Islamist militants began late Thursday in what Kurdish and Iraqi officials called the first stage of an American-led intervention to blunt the militants’ advance and provide emergency aid to tens of thousands of refugees.

The Pentagon firmly denied that American forces had begun a bombing campaign. But Pentagon officials said it was possible that allies of the United States, either the Iraqi or Turkish militaries, had conducted the bombing.

Kurdish and Iraqi officials attributed the bombing campaign to American forces. An announcement on Kurdish television of what was described as an American intervention prompted street celebrations and horn-honking by residents of towns under seige by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

*Read more here from Helene Cooper and Alissa J. Rubin / The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/world/middleeast/obama-weighs-military-strikes-to-aid-trapped-iraqis-officials-say.html