Obama: Iraq action will take time

US airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic State militants have succeeded in destroying arms and equipment that could have been used against the Kurdish capital of Irbil, President Barack Obama has said.

Humanitarian efforts continue to airdrop food and water to persecuted religious minorities stranded on a mountaintop, and he says planning is under way on how to evacuate them.

Mr Obama wouldn’t give a timetable for how long the US military involvement would last, saying it depends on Iraqi political efforts. He said it won’t be weeks but will take some time.

Mr Obama also says the advance of the Islamic State forces was more rapid than anticipated.

He made his comments on the South Lawn of the White House today, just before boarding Marine One for his summer holiday in Massachusetts.

Mr Obama stressed that the new campaign in Iraq ``is going to be a long-term project''.

“I don’t think we are going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr Obama said. “I think this is going to take some time.”

He sharply rejected claims that it was his decision to pull out from Iraq and said it was because Iraqis didn’t want US troops there.

He repeated that the US is not going to have us combat troops in Iraq again. “We are going to maintain that because we should have learned a lesson from our long and immensely costly incursion into Iraq.”

The president said there’s “no doubt” the Islamic State advance on the Kurdish capital of Irbil “has been more rapid than the intelligence estimates”.

US military jets launched several airstrikes on Friday on isolated targets, including two mortar positions and a vehicle convoy. Officials announced the second airdrop of food and water in as many days for the endangered refugees.