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British special forces teams have deployed to Iraq to help rescue tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the murderous onslaught of Islamic State fighters.

Crack SAS and Special Boat Service operators are helping locate non-Sunni Muslims who have escaped IS - formerly known as ISIS - who are hell-bent on murdering non-believers.

American forces today launched devastating air-strikes against IS positions - the first US air attacks on Iraq since they pulled out in 2011.

As many as 250,000 escapees are hiding on a Kurdish mountain, desperate to stay one step ahead of IS forces who have already murdered thousands.

The fresh IS horror was met with demands for the recall of British Parliament and the announcement that the UK military will be involved again in Iraq.

Britain’s Department for International Development announced it will give £8million towards the air drops and the plight of the refugees.

A military source said: “The IS threat looks terrifying in all the video nasties and it may seem like they are taking over the whole of the Middle East.

“But their lines of communication are now stretched and that will be why America finally has decided to start hitting them with air-strikes.

“Trouble is there has to be a small 'boot on the ground' element helping locate the targets and special forces have been deployed to help out.”

Today, two US F18 warplanes killed many Islamic State army fighters with 500lb laser-guided bombs close to the stricken region of Arbil, northern Iraq.

US planes also dropped 72 bundles of supplies, including 8,000 ready-to-eat meals and thousands of gallons of drinking water, for threatened civilians.

(Image: Facebook)

The US Federal Aviation Administration has restricted American passenger carriers from flying in Iraqi airspace “due to the hazardous situation created by the armed conflict” currently raging there.

British Airways confirmed they were temporarily suspending flights over Iraqi airspace.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon confirmed British RAF air drops could start in the next few days.

It is thought they may be launched from Turkish US air base Incirlik.

Mr Fallon said: “What we have decided today is to assist the United States in the humanitarian operations that started yesterday. We are offering technical assistance in that in terms of refuelling and surveillance.

“We are offering aid of our own which we hope to drop over the next couple of days in support of the American relief effort, particularly to help the plight of those who are trapped on the mountain.”

Prime Minister David Cameron added: “I am extremely concerned by the appalling situation in Iraq and the desperate situation facing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

"I am especially concerned for the minority Yazidi community now trapped on Mount Sinjar, where they have fled for their lives.

“They fear slaughter if they descend back down the slopes but face starvation and dehydration if they remain on the mountain. The world must help them in their hour of desperate need.”

Labour MP Tom Watson said Mr Cameron should bring back Parliament from its summer break to debate British action.

“We cannot abandon Iraq to the black flags of ISIS anymore than we could leave Europe to the Kaiser or to his black-shirted inheritors 22 years later,” he wrote on the Labour List website.

He added: “The Prime Minister consulted Parliament on whether to intervene in Syria. We, probably rightly as it turns out, declined him his writ.

“But now – rather than unilaterally decreeing that Britain will not help, will not protect and will not act – he must ask Parliament again for its sovereign view. Because at stake are hundreds of thousands of lives now and Britain’s role in the world for decades to come.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said that religious minorities in the region were enduring “terrible suffering”.

He said such attacks were part of an “evil pattern” around the world where minorities are being killed and persecuted for their faith.

“It is extremely important that aid efforts are supported and that those who have been displaced are able to find safety.

"I believe that, like France, the United Kingdom’s doors should be open to refugees, as they have been throughout history,” he said.

Today’s air-strikes on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s ruthless network came just hours after US President Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for the attacks.

The targets were IS’s mobile artillery positions which have pounded Kurdish forces defending the city of Arbil.

The Mirror’s military source added: “British special forces will play a crucial role, in getting the RAF’s air drops to the right people and in helping gather intelligence.

(Image: Getty)

“It may be that in the coming months the British presence there will increase and a small number of specialist units will join them but that is a long way off.

“The political will for a significant British military presence in Iraq is non-existent but this humanitarian effort is enormous and these people need protecting.”

The strikes this afternoon came after Obama gave the green light to protect Christians and avert “a potential act of genocide” of tens of thousands of members of the ancient Yazidi sect.

They have taken refuge on a desert mountaintop from Islamic State forces who have threatened to exterminate them unless they take up Islam.

The Daily Mirror understands plans for British specials forces to go to northern Iraq have been underway for some weeks but they have only recently been sent.

American crack special forces troops including Navy SEALs and army Delta Force and CIA spies have been in Baghdad and Arbil for weeks helping with the Iraqi effort to tackle the growing IS threat.

Sunni Muslim fighters from the Islamic State, barred from al-Qaeda for being too extreme, are obsessed with establishing a caliphate or Muslim region and eradicating unbelievers.

Believed to include hundreds of British jihadists, they have swept through northern Iraq since June, having grown in numbers in war-torn Syria and unruly Iraqi towns like Fallujah and Ramadi.

U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011 and the UK left in 2009 after having ousted ruler Saddam Hussein eight years earlier.

Obama insisted the United States would not commit ground troops.

But the US air force has begun to drop relief supplies to refugees from the ancient Yazidi sect, being pursued by the al-Qaeda offshoot who want to slaughter them.

Thousands of Yazdis are thought to be sheltering on a desert mountaintop after being warned ISIS wants to exterminate them.

In Baghdad top Shia cleric all but ordered Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to quit, a bold intervention that could bring the veteran ruler down.

The IS advance has accelerated in the past week as they routed Kurdish troops defending an autonomous region in the north.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians and other minorities have fled from Islamic State fighters who have

beheaded and crucified some of their captives, broadcasting it on the Internet.

The retreat of the Kurds has brought the Islamists to within a half hour’s drive of Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region and a hub for U.S. and European oil companies.

(Image: Rex)

Yazidis are ethnic Kurds who practice an ancient faith but Islamic State fighters consider them “devil worshippers”.

Today an horrific video nasty documentary was released showing the chilling brutality of IS fighters.

Young hoods in IS garb are seen in a Vice News feature doing “wheel spins” in a main battle tank shortly after overrunning a Syrian town.

The film - released on the internet - shows IS in a firefight with Syrian regime soldiers near the town of Raqqa.

The Syrian Army is overrun and the bloody aftermath in which 50 soldiers were decapitated is filmed.

Soldiers’ heads are spiked on railings in the middle of the town, and the corpses of the soldiers are left to rot by the roadside.

Boys are seen photographing the sight with their phones.

One boy is asked by an IS fighter if he wants to be a suicide bomber or a jihadist.

He answers coyly: “A jihadist.”

An older boy says he likes IS because: “They kill infidel and apostates - or non-believers.”

The Islamic State, an al-Qaeda spin-off, swept through northern Iraq in June, almost unopposed by Iraq’s U.S.-funded and trained army, and has made huge gains since.

Over the past week, the Sunni militants have made another dramatic push through the north, seizing a fifth oilfield and several more towns and reaching Iraq’s biggest dam after routing Kurdish forces.