Iraq facing political power struggle as US arms Kurds

Haider al-Ibadi, the deputy speaker of parliament from Mr Maliki’s Shiite Dawa party, was selected by President Fouad Massoum to be the new prime minister and was given 30 days to present a new government for MPs’ approval.

US president Barack Obama called Mr al-Ibadi’s nomination a “promising step forward” and urged “all Iraqi political leaders to work peacefully through the political process”.

But Mr Maliki, who has been in power for eight years, defiantly rejected Mr al-Ibadi’s nomination, accusing Mr Massoum of blocking his reappointment as prime minister and carrying out “a coup against the constitution and the political process”.

In another speech last night, Mr Maliki accused the United States of siding with political forces “who have violated the constitution”.

Meanwhile senior American officials said US intelligence agencies were directly arming the Kurds battling the militants in what would be a shift in Washington’s policy of working only through the central government in Baghdad.

US warplanes carried out new strikes, hitting a convoy of Sunni militants moving to attack Kurdish forces defending the autonomous zone’s capital Irbil.

The recent American air strikes have helped the Kurds achieve one of their first victories after weeks of retreat as peshmerga fighters recaptured two towns near Irbil over the weekend.

Despite angrily insisting he should be nominated for a third term, Mr Maliki has lost some support with the main coalition of Shiite parties. His critics say he contributed to Iraq’s political crisis by monopolising power and pursuing a sectarian agenda that alienated the country’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities.

In welcoming the new Iraqi leadership amid the country’s worst crisis since US troops withdrew in 2011, Mr Obama said the only lasting solution was the formation of an inclusive government.

“These have been difficult days in Iraq,” he said. “I’m sure there are going to be difficult days ahead.”

The nomination of Mr al-Ibadi came hours after Mr Maliki deployed his elite security troops in the streets of Baghdad. 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, Maliki,” they shouted, waving posters of him as they sang and danced.

Mr al-Ibadi, the former minister of communications from 2003-4, pledged to form a government to “protect the Iraqi people”. He was nominated after receiving the majority of votes from politicians within the Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition of Shiite parties.

A peaceful transition is looking increasingly unlikely, given Mr Maliki’s reputation for having replaced many senior Sunni officers with less-experienced, more loyal Shiite officers.

US vice president Joe Biden called Mr Massoum to commend him for meeting a “key milestone” in nominating Mr al-Ibadi. Before Mr al-Ibadi’s nomination, US secretary of state John Kerry said “there should be no use of force, no introduction of troops or militias into this moment of democracy for Iraq”.

Mr Kerry said 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 Mr Maliki leaves power, voiced 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,” Mr Rouhani said.

The US weapons being directly sent to Irbil are very limited in scope and number, and mostly consist of light arms like AK-47s and ammunition, a Kurdish government official and a senior Pentagon official said.

The Kurdish official said the weapons were being sent through US intelligence agencies, not the Pentagon or the State Department. Lt Gen William Mayville, operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon was looking at other ways to help the Kurds.

But the Kurdish official said the US lethal aid was still not enough to fight the militants, even though peshmerga and other Kurdish forces were supplemented with similar munitions from Baghdad over the weekend.

US air strikes have reinvigorated Iraqi Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State and on Sunday, the 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.

The successes were balanced out, however, by news of a defeat in the far eastern Diyala province where Kurdish forces were driven out of the town of Jalula after fierce fighting against the militants.

The militants blasted their way into the town using a truck bomb followed up with several suicide bombers on foot, killing at least 14 Kurdish fighters.

The move to directly arm the Kurds underscores the level of US concern about the Islamic State’s gains – particularly at a time when there is such significant turmoil within the central government in Baghdad.

In the meantime US Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah said the team would help speed food, water and other life-saving supplies to Iraqis.

Much of the assistance will go to thousands of members of an Iraqi religious minority group known as Yazidis who have been trapped on a mountaintop in northwest Iraq to escape certain death by Sunni militants with the Islamic State group.

US Central Command said yesterday that it had conducted a fifth air drop of food and water for thousands of Yazidis.