A US and UK humanitarian mission to rescue thousands of people trapped in Iraq is "far less likely" to take place after it has been revealed fewer are stranded than previously feared.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel made the comments on Wednesday, and unnamed officials have since said that after a survey by US special forces gave an estimate of 4,500 civilians remaining on Mount Sinjar.
They said nearly half are herders and shepherds who lived there before the siege and do not want to be evacuated.
The US team spent Wednesday on the siege mountain and said circumstances were less dire than earlier feared.
A map detailing the Sinjar mountains Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have since told Sky News there are only around 2,000 on the mountain.
Earlier, Prime Minister David Cameron said the UK's plans needed to be "flexible" for the "complicated humanitarian mission" and stressed the need to continue delivering aid to refugees.
The PM, who has resisted calls for military intervention, chaired a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee to discuss the situation further.
Members of the Yazidi sect hold a banner asking for international help But Tory backbencher Mark Pritchard, who believes Britain should still be doing more, told Sky News: "Bread alone will not stop ISIS, it will require bullets."
He added: "They are not going to stop until they are stopped... we need to confront the enemy."
The UK has successfully completed seven aid airdrops and was sending a "small number" of RAF Chinook helicopters to the region.
Areas the Islamic State has launched offensives and wants to make one state It has sent RAF Tornado jets equipped with sophisticated surveillance equipment to help gather intelligence.
It had previously been thought there were between 20,000 and 30,000 people trapped on Mount Sinjar after fleeing Sunni militants of the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Sky News Political Correspondent Sophy Ridge said: "I am told that just like the Americans, it is now unlikely that the UK government is going to carry out a rescue mission, and that's simply because the information has changed.
Mr Cameron at a UK aid Disaster Response Centre at Kemble Airport, earlier "Although there are fewer people on the mountain than previously thought, it doesn't mean humanitarian help is not needed elsewhere in northern Iraq."
IS fighters have threatened the ancient Yazidi religious group, many of those who were on the mountain, with death if they fail to convert to Islam.
The Pentagon said that humanitarian aid drops, airstrikes on IS fighters and the efforts of Peshmerga fighters had allowed many Yazidis to escape.
Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdish government's high representative to the UK, told Sky News while the new refugee figures spelled "good news", up to two million displaced civilians remained "in a dire situation" in the Kurdistan region.
Her comments came as the United Nations ramped up its assessment of the crisis to level 3 - its highest level of emergency - and condemned the "barbaric acts" of sexual violence IS fighters have reportedly inflicted on minority groups.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said the Iraqi government had "received atrocious accounts on the abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, Turkomen and Shabak women and girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes".
"Some 1,500 Yazidis and Christians may have been forced into sexual slavery," he added.
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