The US has sent 130 more military advisers to northern Iraq to assess the scope of the humanitarian mission, as the plight of families displaced by Islamist extremists deepens.
Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the soldiers had been sent to northern Iraq to develop additional humanitarian assistance options beyond the current airdrop effort.
The move is in support of displaced Iraqi civilians, including Christian and Yazidi minority groups, trapped in the Sinjar mountains by Sunni militants of the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Sky's Middle East Correspondent Sherine Tadros, in northern Iraq, said the situation was also getting "ever more desperate" for those fleeing the violence and who had managed to escape.
A map detailing the Sinjar mountains "Many have friends and relatives still stuck in the areas taken over by the militants, with no idea if they will make it out alive," she said.
"We are talking about thousands of people that are now taking refuge wherever they can."
What began as a couple of families squatting on a piece of land owned by a Kurdish businessman, has been transformed into a makeshift refugee camp in Dohuk province which has attracted between 6,000 and 8,000 men, women and children.
Areas the Islamic State has launched offensives and wants to make one state Tadros said: "There aren't enough tents. There are only about 230 actual tents that have been donated by the local mayor, and so most of them are actually on the floor, without any shelter, and are using bits of metal, anything they can to shelter from the blistering heat.
"There are a couple of showers and bathrooms, but that is it, and the situation is getting worse, by the day, by the hour, as more people come here, completely dependant on locals providing them with food and clothes.
"The owner of this area has told me he doesn't even know if he is going to be able to feed all of these people this afternoon.
A man gestures to a crater caused by a suicide car bomb blast in Baghdad "And these of course, are considered the lucky ones, the ones who did manage to escape."
In terms of those that have been trapped in the mountains for days and weeks, US Secretary of State John Kerry said: "We will make a very rapid and critical assessment because we understand it is urgent to try to move those people."
Since June the US has sent about 700 military personnel to Iraq to protect diplomats there and take stock of the country's military capacity.
Western powers and international aid agencies are considering further help for the thousands of refugees driven from their homes by IS fighters near the Syrian border.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has so far resisted calls from MPs and senior military commanders for UK forces to join the US in taking military action against IS extremists.
Instead, the UK has stepped up its humanitarian focus in northern Iraq, with a total of five successful aid airdrops over northern Iraq.
Mr Kerry said the US would consider requests for military and other assistance once Iraq's new prime minister-designate forms a government to unite the country.
Haider al Abadi has received support from the US and Iran as well as Sunni neighbours Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
However, his Shi'ite party colleague Nuri al Maliki has refused to step aside after eight years as prime minister.
Meanwhile, at least eight people were killed in a car bomb blast in a shopping district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, near the home of Mr Abadi, on Tuesday night.
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