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U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday the Islamist militant siege of Iraq's Mount Sinjar had been broken and most U.S. military personnel sent to assess the situation would be pulled out of Iraq in coming days, Reuters reported.

He told reporters he did not expect the United States to have to stage an evacuation of the mountain, where thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority had been trapped by militants, or to continue humanitarian airdrops.

"We broke the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) siege of Mount Sinjar," Obama said.

"We helped innocent people reach safety and we helped save many innocent lives. Because of these efforts we do not expect there to be an additional operation to evacuate people off the mountain and it’s unlikely that we are going to need to continue humanitarian airdrops on the mountain," he said.

Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said it was too early to declare the crisis over. Improved security had allowed large numbers of Yazidis to escape Mount Sinjar, he said, but "some thousands" still needed help.

"The crisis on the mountain will not be over until everybody is able to come off that mountain to a safe and secure location in a safe and secure manner," Dwyer said. He was speaking to Reuters by telephone from the Kurdish capital Arbil.