British and American special forces land on Mount Sinjar

British and American forces landed Wednesday Aug 13,20144 on Iraq's Mount Sinjar, but plans to airlift as many as 30,000 starving and dying Yazidi refugees thought to be stranded there are not likely moving forward.

That's because most of the people are no longer there.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement that 'there are far fewer Yazidis on Mt. Sinjar than previously feared, in part because of humanitarian air drops [and] air strikes on [ISIS] targets.'

Also helpful, he said, were 'the efforts of the Peshmerga and the ability of thousands of Yazidis to evacuate from the mountain.'

U.S. officials said Marines and special forces flew in on black hawk helicopters, and departed after spending 24 hours assessing the military situation and the potential for a civilian evacuation route.

Displaced Iraqi families from the Yazidi community in Sanjir cross the Iraqi-Syrian border at Fishkhabur