The U.K. might be open to the possibility of launching air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq if the current crisis leads to the genocide of religious minorities, a step the U.S. military has already made.
On Friday, U.S. fighter jets carried out the first two of what President Barack Obama said would be "targeted airs strikes" against the Sunni extremists to prevent the murders of thousands of Christians and members of the ancient religious Yazidi sect who are currently trapped in the mountains of northern Iraq.
A government source told The Telegraph that Britain could intervene if a massacre occurs.
"We are concerned we could be about to witness genocide. In that kind of scenario, we are not ruling things out," the unnamed source said.
The Iraq crisis may already be escalating. Jihadists have recently kidnapped hundreds of Yazidi women, Iraq's human rights ministry said.
"We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them," a ministry spokesman told the newspaper.
Also on Friday, Britain's Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said a nearly $13 million emergency aid package and supplies will be provided for the trapped refugees, The Telegraph reported.
Obama said this week the U.S. already airdropped food and water to the displaced victims.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Obama made the right decision by coming to the aid of the 40,000 civilians stranded on Mount Sinjar, who face dying of starvation or being slaughtered if they return to their homes in Sinjar town.
But "we are not planning a military intervention," a spokesman from the prime minister's office told The Independent on Friday.
Still, authorities from the U.S. and U.K.'s national security teams have been in contact, according to The Telegraph. Cameron has also faced increasing pressure from senior Parliament officials to approve military action.
