BAGHDAD -- Iraq's president snubbed incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and picked another politician Monday to form the next government, setting up a political power struggle even as the country battles extremists in the north and west.
The showdown came as the United States increased its role in fighting back Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group, which is threatening the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. Senior American officials said U.S. intelligence agencies are directly arming the Kurds, who are battling the militants, in what would be a shift in Washington's policy of working only through the central government in Baghdad.
U.S. warplanes carried out new strikes Sunday, hitting a convoy of Sunni militants moving to attack Kurdish forces defending the autonomous zone's capital, Irbil. The recent American airstrikes have helped the Kurds achieve one of their first victories after weeks of retreat as peshmerga fighters over the weekend recaptured two towns near Irbil. The Pentagon's director of operations said the effort will do little to slow Islamic State militants overall.
Haider al-Ibadi, the deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament from al-Maliki's Shiite Dawa party, was selected by President Fouad Massoum to be the new prime minister.
Under Iraq's Constitution, al-Abadi now has 30 days in which to form a government that offers meaningful positions to Iraq's main minority factions, Sunnis and Kurds. During that time, al-Maliki will remain as a caretaker leader and as commander in chief of Iraq's security forces.
U.S. President Barack Obama called al-Ibadi's nomination a "promising step forward," and he urged "all Iraqi political leaders to work peacefully through the political process."
But al-Maliki, who has been in power for eight years, defiantly rejected al-Ibadi's nomination as prime minister. In a speech early Monday, he accused Massoum of blocking his reappointment as prime minister and carrying out "a coup against the constitution and the political process." He also threatened Massoum with legal action for not choosing him as the nominee
In another speech broadcast Monday night, al-Maliki insisted al-Ibadi's nomination "runs against the constitutional procedures," and he accused the United States of siding with political forces "who have violated the constitution."
"Today, we are facing a grave constitutional breach, and we have appealed, and we have the proof that we are the largest bloc," al-Maliki said. "We assure all the Iraqi people and the political groups that there is no importance or value to this nomination."
But despite angrily insisting he should be nominated for a third term, al-Maliki has lost some support with the main coalition of Shiite parties. His critics say al-Maliki contributed to Iraq's political crisis by monopolizing power and pursuing a sectarian agenda that alienated the country's Sunni and Kurdish minorities.
In welcoming the new Iraqi leadership during the country's worst crisis since U.S. troops withdrew in 2011, Obama said the only lasting solution is the formation of an inclusive government.
"These have been difficult days in Iraq," Obama said while on vacation on Martha's Vineyard. "I'm sure there are going to be difficult days ahead.
"The United States stands ready to support a government that addresses the needs and grievances of all Iraqi people."
The nomination of al-Ibadi came hours after al-Maliki deployed his elite security troops in the streets of Baghdad, including special operations forces units loyal to al-Maliki, as well as tanks, which locked down the fortified Green Zone of government buildings and took up positions around the city.
Hundreds of his supporters were escorted to a popular rally site by military trucks, raising fears he might try to stay in power by force.
"We are with you, al-Maliki," they shouted, waving posters of him as they sang and danced.
But there were no immediate signs Monday afternoon that al-Maliki had taken further steps to use military force to guarantee his survival.
Al-Ibadi, the former minister of communications from 2003-04, pledged to form a government to "protect the Iraqi people." He was nominated after receiving the majority of votes from lawmakers within the Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition of Shiite parties.
A peaceful transition is looking increasingly unlikely given al-Maliki's reputation for having replaced many senior Sunni officers with less-experienced, more loyal Shiite officers.
"One of the major concerns [the U.S.] had in 2010 is the degree to which al-Maliki was trying to coup-proof his military," said Richard Brennan, an expert on Iraqi special forces at Rand Corp. and the former U.S. Department of Defense policymaker. "The U.S. worked hard with the military to make them understand that loyalty had to be to country, not to al-Maliki, but al-Maliki cut the forces to replace competent people with less-competent people loyal to him."
"We're all worried about a coup d'état," said Gen. Halgurd Hikmet, the chief spokesman for the Kurdish fighters in Iraq. "Maliki has to know that we have two major units of our troops guarding the parliament and the Defense Ministry," he said referring to the Kurdish division of the Iraqi army.
There are also forces loyal to the influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who oppose al-Maliki and are numerous in Baghdad. And there are the fighters of the Badr Corps, who are technically part of the Iraqi army but remain closely tied to Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful Shiite member of the parliament with links to Iran. Whether Badr fighters back al-Maliki or move against him could help determine whether he survives in office.
It was not clear whether any of these militias would take action, but the potential for clashes is real, several people said.
A person close to Massoum, who is Kurdish, said the president had "taken his briefcase and gone to his office as usual" Monday. His presidential guard is on high alert, said a Kurdish leader who was in touch with the guard team, made up of peshmerga.
Words from abroad
Vice President Joe Biden called Massoum to commend him for meeting a "key milestone" in nominating al-Ibadi. Prior to al-Ibadi's nomination, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Sydney that "there should be no use of force, no introduction of troops or militias into this moment of democracy for Iraq."
Kerry added that a new government "is critical in terms of sustaining the stability and calm in Iraq" and that "our hope is that Mr. Maliki will not stir those waters."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who has expressed fears that Iraq will fragment unless al-Maliki leaves power, expressed his concern about the political crisis in Baghdad in a call with newly elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"It is important for Iran that a person approved by a majority of the representatives of the people in the Iraqi parliament takes power and begins his legal actions in Iraq."
The U.S. weapons being sent directly to Irbil are very limited in scope and number, and mostly consist of light arms such as AK-47s and ammunition, a Kurdish government official and a senior Pentagon official said.
The Kurdish official said the weapons are being sent through U.S. intelligence agencies and not the Pentagon nor the State Department. Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon was looking at other ways to help the Kurds.
The U.S. conducted more airstrikes Monday against the Islamic State in northern Iraq as Yazidis trapped on an Iraqi mountain by the militants' advance were escaping. The Yazidis follow and ancient religion.
"Our aircraft remain positioned to strike any terrorist forces around the mountain who threaten the safety of these families," Obama said.
Mayville told reporters that the 15 targeted strikes overall have slowed the Islamic State's advance but done little to degrade the militants' capacity as a fighting force.
"In the immediate areas where we've focused our strikes we've had a very temporary effect," Mayville said. "I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained -- or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of -- the threat posed by" the Islamic State group.
A Kurdish official said the U.S. lethal aid is still not enough to battle the militants, even though peshmerga and other Kurdish forces were supplemented with similar munitions from Baghdad over the weekend. Neither the Kurd or the senior Pentagon official was authorized to discuss the U.S. arms by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
But U.S. airstrikes have reinvigorated Iraqi Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State and on Sunday, Kurdish peshmerga fighters retook two towns -- Makhmour and al-Gweir, some 28 miles from Irbil -- from the Sunni militants in what was one of their first victories after weeks of retreat.
In recent months, support for al-Maliki has waned, not only among politicians but also from Iraq's Shiite religious establishment and, particularly, its most revered cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is closely linked with Iraq's biggest ally, Iran.
Disunity is not exclusive to the Shiite coalition, however. Sunni political parties, once superior under ousted leader Saddam Hussein, have also been at odds in recent months as they try to reassert themselves in al-Maliki's government while distancing themselves from the Sunni militant onslaught that has killed thousands.
It also has displaced more than 1.2 million people, said Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"All of this amounts to a humanitarian catastrophe," Dwyer told reporters by phone from Irbil.
U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah said the team will help speed food, water and other lifesaving supplies to Iraqis.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron was under growing domestic pressure Monday to join the U.S. military intervention in Iraq as his government said it would continue to limit its involvement to humanitarian aid.
Cameron has been adamant that the British armed forces stay out of the fight in Iraq and allow the U.S. military to go it alone more than a decade after the United States and Britain jointly led the invasion that toppled Saddam.
But with reports of atrocities by Islamic State extremists continuing to emerge from northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, the prime minister faced demands from both his political right and left on Monday to recall Parliament from its summer recess and consider a military response to protect Iraqi minorities.
"It's immoral that the only thing we are doing is dropping food and water and leaving these people in the firing line of slaughter," said Conor Burns, a member of Parliament from Cameron's Conservative Party. "We're seeing beheadings, crucifixions, rapes -- it's unbelievable that the West cannot get its moral compass together and go in and fight back."
Information for this article was contributed by Vivian Salama, Sameer N. Yacoub, Sinan Salaheddin, Matthew Lee, Lolita C. Baldor, Lara Jakes, Ken Dilanian, Nedra Pickler, Julie Pace, Edith M. Lederer and Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press; by Tim Arango, Alissa J. Rubin, Michael R. Gordon and Rod Nordland of The New York Times; and by Griff Witte and Karla Adam of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/12/2014