– Crisis not over –
Thousands of people have poured across a border bridge into camps in Iraq’s Kurdish region after trekking through neighbouring Syria to find refuge, most with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Some women carried exhausted children, weeping as they reached the relative safety of the camps.
The hundreds of thousands of Yazidis, Christians, Turkmen, Shabak and other people who have been displaced in recent weeks have little prospect of returning home any time soon.
Washington has ruled out boots on the ground and the fight-back is being led by Kurdish forces who, despite Western arms deliveries, have so far contained IS fighters rather than reclaimed large tracts of territory.
The international community had for weeks stressed that no effective counter-offensive could take place without a cohesive government steering the country.
Obama, the United Nations, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric and even much of his own parliamentary bloc had made it clear that government could not be headed by Maliki.
Observers had said Maliki had reasons to fear for his life or at least his freedom after relinquishing the premiership and could seek to stay in a position of power as a protection.
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