BAGHDAD (AP) — His days in power in Iraq appear increasingly numbered. World leaders, including his biggest ally, Iran, hail the nomination of the man who would be his successor.
There's seemingly little left for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to cling to, beyond the support of party stalwarts and high-ranking loyalists in the military.
Al-Maliki looked even more isolated Tuesday, a day after Iraq's president appointed Haider al-Abadi as prime minister-designate to form a caretaker government — a move seen as a major step toward breaking the political deadlock that has paralyzed the country since April elections. It also comes after Islamic extremists have swept across northern Iraq, prompting the U.S. to launch airstrikes and directly arm Kurds who are battling the militants.
Despite the backing he enjoys among the top military brass, al-Maliki told the Iraqi army Tuesday to keep out of politics and focus on protecting the nation.
Al-Maliki, who has been in power for eight years, insists he should keep his post as prime minister of the Shiite-led government for a third term because his bloc won the most seats in the assembly, even though he has lost some support with the main coalition of Shiite parties.
U.S. President Barack Obama has called the nomination of al-Abadi a positive step for Iraq, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he welcomed the formation of a new government "acceptable to all components of Iraqi society."
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah sent his congratulations. The official Saudi Press Agency said the king expressed his hope the new prime minister, president and parliament speaker would restore cohesion and unity among the Iraqi people. The move represents a sharp pivot from the bitter relationship that Riyadh and Baghdad had under al-Maliki, when each side blamed the other for sectarian strife and fueling extremism.
Even Shiite powerhouse Iran rallied behind al-Abadi as a badly needed unifying figure in the face of the insurgency by the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group. Top Iranian official Ali Shamkhani offered his congratulations to the veteran Iraqi politician, indicating that Tehran, with its considerable influence on the Shiite parties, is further shifting away from al-Maliki.
In remarks to reporters in New York, Ban warned against the Iraqi military taking sides in Iraq.
"It is imperative that the security forces refrain from intervening in the political process," he said.
Since winning his second term in 2010, al-Maliki has worked to craft a military in which the top brass are loyal to him.
During a televised discussion with his senior military commanders, al-Maliki urged the armed forces not to interfere in the political process. Heightened security on Monday sparked concerns in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq that security forces might implement a lockdown after President Fouad Massoum appointed al-Abadi.
Al-Maliki himself raised the specter of further unrest by saying that Sunni militants or Shiite militiamen might don military uniforms and try to take control of the streets on the pretext of supporting him. But he also warned against such actions.
"This is not allowed because those people, wearing army uniforms and in military vehicles, might take advantage of the situation and move around and make things worse," he told the senior army and police commanders.
Analysts say the Iraqi armed forces and his remaining political allies prefer to avoid a military confrontation and instead are interested in protecting their own positions.
Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish politician who formerly served as foreign minister in al-Maliki's government, said military commanders in Baghdad "have assured the president and prime minister-designate that they will not take sides, that they will abide by the constitution and they will support democratic institutions in the country."
"Also Shiite armed militias made similar pledges that they will not undermine the security of the people," Zebari said.
Austin Long, a member of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, said Washington and Tehran should try to ensure that al-Maliki has a "safe exit" from power.
"A lot of people don't want to let go of power because they get a little Messiah complex, but also, they want to be sure that if they peacefully transfer power, then they won't end up swinging from a lamp post," Long said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged al-Abadi to work quickly to form an inclusive government and said the U.S. is prepared to offer it significant additional aid in the fight against Islamic State militants.
The U.S. has already increased its role in fighting the Islamic State militant group, which has threatened the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. The airstrikes, which began Friday, have reinvigorated Iraqi Kurdish forces.
On Tuesday, a U.S. drone destroyed a militant mortar position threatening Kurdish forces defending refugees near the Syrian border.
Another 130 U.S. troops arrived in the Kurdish capital of Irbil in northern Iraq on Tuesday on what the Pentagon described as a temporary mission to assess the scope of the humanitarian crisis facing thousands of displaced Iraqi civilians trapped on Sinjar Mountain.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the deployment in remarks to Marines at Camp Pendleton, California.
The 130 are in addition to 90 U.S. military advisers already in Baghdad and 160 in a pair of operations centers — one in Irbil and one in Baghdad — working with Iraqi and Kurdish security forces. They are in addition to about 455 U.S. security forces and 100 military personnel working in the Office of Security Cooperation in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad..
"This is not a combat boots on the ground kind of operation," Hagel said. "We're not going back into Iraq in any of the same combat mission dimensions that we once were in in Iraq," he added, referring to the eight-year war that cost more than 4,400 U.S. lives and soured the American public on military involvement in Iraq.
Another defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide additional details on the sensitive mission, said the extra troops are Marines and special operations forces whose mission is to assess the situation in the Sinjar area and to develop additional humanitarian assistance options beyond current U.S. efforts there. Still another official said the mission for the 130 troops could last less than one week.
They are to work with representatives of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to coordinate plans with international partners and non-government organizations to help thousands of members of the Yazidi minority trapped on Sinjar Mountain in northwest Iraq. The Kurdish-speaking Yazidis follow an ancient religion, with roots in Zoroastrianism, which the Islamic State group considers heretical and has vowed to destroy.
On Tuesday night, U.S. Central Command said four U.S. Air Force cargo planes dropped 108 bundles of food and water intended to help the trapped Yazidi civilians on Sinjar Mountain. It was the sixth such humanitarian relief mission conducted by U.S. planes since last week.
An Iraqi military helicopter providing aid to civilians fleeing the militants crashed near the Sinjar mountains in northern Iraq, killing the pilot, army spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said in a statement. The helicopter crashed after too many civilians tried to board it.
The New York Times reported one of its reporters, Alissa J. Rubin, was in the helicopter and suffered an apparent concussion and broken wrists in the crash.
France and Britain stepped up support Tuesday for thousands of people fleeing the Islamic militants in northern Iraq, pledging more air drops, money and equipment to ease suffering and bolster fighters battling the Sunni insurgents.
Britain fast-tracked 3 million pounds ($5 million) in aid. The European Union said it wants to "bring vital assistance to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians trapped by the fighting" and was increasing its aid by 5 million euros ($7 million) for a total of about $23 million this year.
EU Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said the funding will help "vulnerable Iraqis, including the minority groups besieged in the mountains of Sinjar" and the communities hosting a growing number of refugees.
In other violence reported Tuesday, a car bomb exploded in the Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniya, killing four people and wounding 13 others, police said. Another bomb detonated in the commercial district of Karrada, killing eight, according to medical officials in a nearby hospital. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
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Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad, Adam Schreck in Dubai, Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Edith M. Lederer in New York, and Juergen Baetz in Brussels contributed to this report.
BREAKING: US military: Fighters, drone aircraft strike militants near Irbil and Mosul Dam in Iraq
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 16, 2014
Correspondent for Britain's The Sunday Times Hala Jaber reports that Kurdish and Yazidi officials say the death toll from the Islamic State's attack on the Iraq village of Kocho on Friday is higher than previously estimated. A Kurdish official initially said around 80 people lost their lives.
#IS has carried out the mass executon of over 300 Yazidi men 4m the village of #Kocho last night & taken 1000 women and children prsisoners.
— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) August 16, 2014
.2/ The claim by the #Yazidi leader #Mirza_Dinnayi was also confirmed by a senior Kurdish official in #Erbil.
— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) August 16, 2014
.3/ #Yazidi leader said they asked 4air strikes agst #IS tagets in village, but non came & tt #Obama saying its over allowed #IS 2 massacre.
— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) August 16, 2014
.4/ 1000 women were taken as prisoners by #IS split into 2 groups. The "pretty incl gilrs aged btwn 10-11 and the others.
— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) August 16, 2014
.5/ His claims were confirmed by a senior Kurdish official independt of Mirza. More details in @thesundaytimes 2morrow also @itvnews @jrug
— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) August 16, 2014
Islamic State militants in Iraq could grow strong enough to target the UK unless action is taken - PM David Cameron http://t.co/k2i5CjTm2S
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) August 16, 2014
New York Times correspondent Alissa J. Rubin tells her story inside the Iraqi helicopter that crashed on the Sinjar mountains on Tuesday while attempting to rescue stranded Yazidis.
Rubin was wounded in the crash and dictated the article from her hospital bed in Istanbul, the newspaper notes.
Read her moving account on The New York Times here.
The BBC's Yalda Hakim reports from a refugee camp in Dohuk on how the Yazidi community learned of an alleged massacre by Islamic State militants in Iraq.
Watch the BBC report here.
Kurdish forces, supported by U.S. warplanes, are battling to recaptured Iraq's largest dam from Islamic State militants, Agence France Presse reports.
More from AFP:
Kurdish forces attacked the Islamic State fighters who wrested the Mosul dam from them a week earlier, a general told AFP.
"Kurdish peshmerga, with US air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam" complex, Major General Abdelrahman Korini told AFP, saying several jihadists had been killed.
The Kurdish Iraqi leader has appealed to Germany for weapons to battle the advancing Islamic State, Reuters reports.
From Reuters:
Germany has shied away from direct involvement in military conflicts for much of the post-war era and a survey conducted for Bild am Sonntag newspaper indicated that almost three quarters of Germans were against shipping weapons to the Kurds.
But Germany's defense minister has said the government was looking into the possibility of delivering military hardware.
Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, said the Kurds needed more than the humanitarian aid that Germany began sending on Friday to support people forced to flee their homes by the Sunni militant group's advance.
"We also expect Germany to deliver weapons and ammunition to our army so that we can fight back against the IS terrorists," Barzani told German magazine Focus. He said they needed German training and what they lacked most were anti-tank weapons.
#BREAKING: US-backed Kurds in bid to retake Iraq's largest dam: general
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) August 16, 2014
Airstrikes pounded the area around Iraq's largest dam on Saturday in an effort to drive out militants who captured it earlier this month, as reports emerged of the massacre of some 80 members of the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic extremists.
Residents living near the Mosul Dam told The Associated Press that the area was being targeted by airstrikes, but it was not immediately clear whether the attacks were being carried out by Iraq's air force or the U.S., which last week launched an air campaign aimed at halting the advance of the Islamic State group across the country's north.
The extremist group seized the dam on the Tigris River on Aug. 7. Residents near the dam say the airstrikes killed militants, but that could not immediately be confirmed. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for their safety.
The United States may accelerate economic and military aid to Iraq now Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stood down, Reuters reports.
U.S. officials first want assurances that the Iraqi government has moved away from the sectarian policies of al-Maliki's administration, according to the news agency.
Read the full story here.
Islamic State insurgents "massacred" some 80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a village in the country's north, a Yazidi lawmaker and two Kurdish officials said on Friday.
"They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon," senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. "We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed."
A Yazidi lawmaker and another senior Kurdish official also said the killings had taken place and that the women of the village were kidnapped.
A push by Islamic State militants through northern Iraq to the border with the Kurdish region has alarmed the Baghdad government, drawn the first U.S. air strikes since the end of American occupation in 2001 and sent tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians fleeing for their lives.
Yazidi parliamentarian Mahama Khalil said he had spoken to villagers who had survived the attack. They said the killings took place during a one-hour period.
ABC News' Jon Williams posted a photo of the UN Security Council Resolution against Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria.
#UN "deplores & condemns gross, systematic & widespread abuses of human rights" by #ISIS in chapter VII resolution. pic.twitter.com/wbHA1SEUYX
— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) August 15, 2014
The Hezbollah leader described the radical Islamist movement that has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria as a growing "monster" that could threaten Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states, according to an interview printed on Friday.
In a separate speech, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Islamic State also posed an existential threat to his own nation, Lebanon, the target of an incursion by Islamist insurgents from Syria this month. He said his heavily armed Shi'ite Muslim group was ready to fight the threat in Lebanon - if required.
The United Nations Security Council took aim at Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria on Friday, blacklisting six people including the Islamic State spokesman and threatening sanctions against those who finance, recruit or supply weapons to the insurgents.
The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution that aims to weaken the Islamic State - an al Qaeda splinter group that has seized swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate - and al Qaeda's Syrian wing Nusra Front.
Read the full story here.
Canada is committing two cargo planes to move military supplies into northern Iraq as part of the international effort to bolster Kurdish forces against Islamic militants.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday a CC-177 Globemaster and a CC-130J Hercules transport will shuttle arms provided by allies to the Iraqi city of Irbil over the next few days
The flights, crewed by some 30 Canadian Forces personnel, will continue as long as there is equipment and supplies to move.
The New York Times reports on how the U.S. decided it was not necessary to launch a mountain rescue of Yazidis who had fled the Islamic State, after getting advisors reported back that the situation was not as dire as they thought.
The news took the far-flung advisers who were in the videoconference — including Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Hawaii; Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, on a plane over the Rockies; and the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, who was with the president on Martha’s Vineyard — by surprise. Just hours before, the White House had sent out a top aide with a statement saying that the United States was considering using American ground troops to rescue the Yazidis.
The article notes that Yazidi and UN officials give a different picture of Yazidis still stranded on the mountaintop.
Read the full story at The New York Times here.
Amid the relentless advance of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, the whole Middle East region needs to pitch in to solve the crisis, Joyce Karam, Washington Bureau Chief of Al-Hayat Newspaper told HuffPost Live.
In particular, Iran and Saudi Arabia have a shared interest in stability in Iraq and should overcome their differences to halt the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, Karam told host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani.
"We do need a regional wake-up call to deal with the threat and a Iranian-Saudi rapprochement would do a great deal in promoting this," she said.
Read the full story on the Huffington Post here.
The European Union said on Friday that individual EU governments were free to send weapons to Iraqi Kurds battling Islamic militants provided they had the consent of Iraqi national authorities.
EU foreign ministers holding an emergency meeting in Brussels did not reach a united position to all send arms to the Iraqi Kurds but welcomed the decision by some EU governments, such as France, to do so.
The EU said it would also look at how to prevent Islamic State militants, who have overrun some oilfields in Syria and Iraq, benefiting from oil sales. The bloc also called for a swift investigation of human rights abuses in Syria and Iraq, saying some may be crimes against humanity.

An Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighter plays a musical instrument on the front line in Khazer, near the Kurdish checkpoint of Aski kalak, northern Iraq, on August 14, 2014. (SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
Tribal leaders and clerics from Iraq's Sunni heartland who staged a revolt against outgoing prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government would be willing to join the new administration if certain conditions are met, a spokesman for the group told Reuters on Friday.
The spokesman, Taha Mohammed Al-Hamdoon, said Sunni representatives in Anbar and other provinces had drawn up a list of demands to be delivered to the moderate Shi'ite Abadi through Sunni politicians.
He called for government and Shi'ite militia forces to suspend hostilities to allow space for talks.
The United Nations agency for refugees interviews Yazidi refugees who escaped from the Sinjar mountains:
Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, threw his weight on Friday behind the new prime minister, calling for national unity to contain sectarian bloodshed and an offensive by Islamic State militants that threatens Baghdad.
Speaking after Nuri al-Maliki finally stepped down as prime minister under heavy pressure from allies at home and abroad, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority said the handover to Maliki's party colleague Haider al-Abadi offered a rare opportunity to resolve political and security crises.
Iraq has been plunged into its worst violence since the peak of a sectarian civil war in 2006-2007, with Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State overrunning large parts of the west and north, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee for their lives and threatening the ethnic Kurds in their autonomous province.
Sistani told the country's feuding politicians to live up to their "historic responsibility" by cooperating with Abadi as he tries to form a new government and overcome divisions among the Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish communities that deepened as Maliki pursued what critics saw as a sectarian Shi'ite agenda.
Abadi himself, in comments online, urged his countrymen to unite and cautioned that the road ahead would be tough.
The U.S. government's development agency posted a photo on Twitter of American officials meeting with displaced Yazidis on the Sinjar mountains on Wednesday. USAID said the assessment team consisted of military and humanitarian officials.
A member of the U.S. Mt. Sinjar Assessment Team receives a warm welcome from locals near Sinjar, Iraq, Aug 13 (1/2) pic.twitter.com/OLpPQadSso
— USAID Press Office (@USAIDPress) August 14, 2014
The team consisted of members from the @USAID DART and U.S. military personnel, who assessed current humanitarian assistance efforts. (2/2)
— USAID Press Office (@USAIDPress) August 14, 2014
More from the Associated Press on Maliki's announcement he is standing down:
Al-Maliki says his decision is based on his desire to "safeguard the high interests of the country," adding that he will not be the cause of any bloodshed.
"I will stay a combat soldier to defend Iraq and its people," he added in the televised address late Thursday, with al-Abadi standing by his side.
#BreakingNews: Iraq former-PM Maliki defends his time in office, achievements
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 14, 2014
#BreakingNews: Iraqi former-PM Maliki: I have chosen from the beginning to distance myself from using force http://t.co/shwh7GJ0Oc
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 14, 2014
#BreakingNews: Maliki announcing resignation on State TV
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 14, 2014
Iraqi state television says Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki has given up his post as prime minister to Haider al-Abadi.
The Iraqiya television network said al-Maliki has "relinquished the post of prime minister." It did not elaborate.
The announcement comes ahead of an address al-Maliki is due to make later Thursday evening, according to the government.
BREAKING: Iraqi state TV: Nouri al-Maliki has given up the post of prime minister to Haider al-Abadi.
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 14, 2014
BAGHDAD (AP) — The Iraqi government says embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is to address the nation, as Shiite lawmakers say he has agreed to step aside and support his nominated replacement in the post.
Four senior Shiite lawmakers tell The Associated Press that al-Maliki has agreed to endorse Haider al-Abadi as the next prime minister following a meeting of Dawa party members in Baghdad late Thursday, ending the deadlock that has plunged Baghdad into a political uncertainty.
Hussein al-Maliki and Khalaf Abdul-Samad, lawmakers with al-Maliki and al-Abadi's State of Law parliamentary bloc, say al-Maliki will support al-Abadi's nomination in his speech Thursday night. Two other lawmakers, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting, also say al-Maliki will do so.
The government announced al-Maliki will speak Thursday evening.
#BREAKING Maliki to concede defeat, back Iraq PM-designate, says spokesman
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) August 14, 2014
The United Nations Security Council will vote on Friday on a draft resolution aimed to stop the flow of fighters and money to the Islamic State militant group, according to Agence France Presse.
Diplomats told the news agency that all 15 Council members have agreed the draft, proposed by Britain, and it will go to a vote at 1900 GMT on Friday.
