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Overshadowed by Iraq's intensified security crisis, the country certified the results of the 30 April parliamentary elections on 1 June - triggering the start of efforts to ratify the next prime minister and his cabinet with at least 163 seats in the 325-member parliament. Two-term Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his State of Law alliance performed well, winning 92 seats directly and being able to count on at least a further 10 to 20 seats held by close allies. Mr Maliki's Shia opponents could muster about 60 seats, the Kurds a further 53, the numerous Sunni Arab or nationalist lists...

Iraqi forces were massing north of Baghdad on Friday, aiming to strike back at Sunni Islamists whose drive toward the capital prompted the United States to send military advisers to stiffen government resistance. President Barack Obama offered up to 300 Americans to help coordinate the fight. But he held off granting a request for air strikes from the Shi'ite-led government and renewed a call for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to do more to overcome sectarian divisions that have fuelled resentment among the Sunni minority. [....] In the area around Samarra, on the main highway 100 km (60 miles) north of...

"A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has said he will not stand down as a condition of US air strikes against Sunni militants who have made a lightning advance across the country." ****** Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, told a hearing on Wednesday that Maliki's government "has got to go if you want any reconciliation", and Republican John McCain called for the use of US air power but also urged Obama to "make very clear to Maliki that his time is up". ***** Obama is said to be still weighing military options, and...

Vice President Biden spoke today with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi, and President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani. The United States has been working to support the Iraqi government and all of Iraq's communities in their common fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The Vice President discussed the security situation, the U.S. assistance currently being provided to Iraqi security forces, and additional measures that could be taken under the Strategic Framework Agreement. In each call, the Vice President also stressed the need for national unity in responding...

The US is reported to have demanded the resignation of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as a condition for US military intervention. The Wall Street Journal says the US has signalled its desire for unity government in Iraq without Maliki. Maliki's government has rejected calls for the prime minister to quit. His spokesman, Zuhair al-Nahar, said the west should focus instead on providing immediate military help to the Iraqi government.

Iraq has formally called on the US to launch air strikes against jihadist militants who have seized several key cities over the past week. "We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," confirmed top US military commander Gen Martin Dempsey in front of US senators. Earlier the Sunni insurgents launched an attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji north of Baghdad. Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki earlier urged Iraqis to unite against the militants. Government forces are battling to push back ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and its Sunni Muslim allies in Diyala and...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step aside from his country as it gallops furiously toward civil war. In recent days, Sunni extremist fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria moved within 50 miles of Baghdad, an alarming escalation that, the former Secretary of State told Fox News on Tuesday, the Iraqi politician had only exacerbated. Clinton said al-Maliki showed weak leadership by exhibiting a preference for Iraqi Shi‘ites and purging senior military leaders of the rival religious sect group. Clinton added that she is “not in favor of any...

raq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fired four of his top security officers on Tuesday for abandoning their "professional and military duty" a week after the fall of the northwest city of Mosul to Sunni militants, the government said. Top officers, including Lieutenant General Mehdi Sabah Gharawi, the top commander for Nineveh province where Sunni fighters have gained ground, were fired because they "failed to fulfill their professional and military duties", according to a government statement read out on state television.

Iraq's Shi'ite rulers defied Western calls on Tuesday to reach out to Sunnis to defuse the uprising in the north of the country, declaring a boycott of Iraq's main Sunni political bloc and accusing Sunni power Saudi Arabia of promoting "genocide". Maliki has blamed Saudi Arabia for supporting militants in the past, but the severe language was unprecedented. On Monday Riyadh blamed sectarianism in Baghdad for fuelling the violence.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has fired senior officers for failing to halt a sweeping advance by Sunni Islamist rebels. Four army commanders were dismissed for failing to perform "their national duty", a government statement said on Tuesday. Iraqi forces have been engaged in heavy clashes with the rebels who have seized several key cities in the past week.

Hillary Clinton on Thursday said the U.S. shouldn’t provide military assistance to Iraq despite the threat from an Islamist militant group that has captured major cities. [READ MORE] “I agree with the White House’s rejection and reluctance to do the kind of military activities that the Maliki government is requesting, mainly the fighter aircraft to provide close support for the army and also to go after targets,” the former secretary of State said on BBC’s “Newsnight.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reportedly asked the Obama administration to launch airstrikes against militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)....

US President Barack Obama declared on Thursday that short-term military actions will have to be taken in Iraq, following the take-over by an Al Qaeda break-off Islamist terrorist group over large portions of the country. Reuters reported that Obama said he is looking at "all options" as far as helping the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, noting "I don't rule anything out," when asked whether the United States is considering drone strikes or any other action to stop the insurgency. Speaking at the White House while meeting Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, Obama said there will be "short-term...

As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials. But Iraq’s appeals for military assistance have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was closed when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, declined to comment on Mr. Maliki’s...

(Ayad) Allawi, the son of a Shiite businessman, joined the nationalist Baath party when he was a medical student, but in the 1970s, became an opponent of Saddam, who had already begun using brutal methods to steer the country. Today, 11 years after Saddam’s fall, violence, corruption and abuses of power still dominate daily life in Baghdad. Allawi blames Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for this chaos. […] “I have nothing against the Iranian leadership. In fact, I accommodated it often enough during my time as premier. But I am no proponent of a theocracy. I am a secularist. I wanted...

The speaker of Iraq's parliament warned on Friday that upcoming elections might be used to further marginalize already-frustrated Sunni Muslims, who have chafed against what they call unfair treatment from the country's Shi'ite prime minister. Usama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, said in an interview during a visit to Washington that he feared attempts to discourage voting or "provoke the situation" in Sunni areas, or to sideline certain would-be candidates, were designed "to weaken Sunni representation in parliament." He also warned that poor security could pose problems for the parliamentary polls, scheduled for April 30. "If the security conditions worsen, the elections...

A series of car bombs near Baghdad has killed at least 21 people Monday, in the latest in a series of sectarian clashes ripping through Iraq. The attacks came just hours after the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the Iraqi government to address the root causes behind the clashes, in light of escalating violence. Four car bombs exploded in the Shi'ite districts of the Iraqi capital, killing at least 20 people; Al-Jazeera sets the number at 21 killed, Reuters UK at 25 killed and 76 wounded. In addition, gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Southern Baghdad, killing 3 policeman...

Mithal Al-Alusi, whose two sons were killed in a Baghdad ambush soon after he visited Israel, tells The Times of Israel he feels betrayed by the superpower which allowed him to return to his homeland Mithal Al-Alusi is angry. He is angry with Iran for supporting global terrorism. He is angry with Syrian President Bashar Assad for oppressing and killing his own people. He is angry with his own prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, for colluding with the two. But most of all, he is angry with US President Barack Obama for allowing this all to happen. “Obama has...

Nine years after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein and just a few months after the last U.S. soldier left Iraq, the country has become something close to a failed state. [snip] "The Iraqi state cannot provide basic services, including electricity in summer, clean water, and decent health care; meanwhile, unemployment among young men hovers close to 30 percent, making them easy recruits for criminal gangs and militant factions." [snip] Both Maliki and his rivals are responsible for the slow slide toward chaos, prisoners of their own history under Saddam.......Meanwhile, the Kurds maneuver gingerly around the divisions in Baghdad. Their priority...

Saudi newspapers on Tuesday waged a scathing campaign against Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over his implicit criticism of the kingdom and Qatar for their calls to arm Syrian rebels. "Gulf (states) should boycott Maliki and his government," wrote Tariq al-Homayed, the editor of Asharq al-Awsat, calling for the "punishment of all who stand with the tyrant of Damascus, first and foremost Maliki's government." "Boycott him to prevent the emergence of a new Saddam or another Bashar," wrote Homayed in the Saudi owned pan-Arab daily referring to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad. The...

To detractors, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki threw down the gauntlet with stunning speed when his Shi'ite Muslim-led government demanded the arrest of a Sunni Muslim vice president seemingly moments after the departure of U.S. troops. Already seen as having autocratic tendencies in a country where most people have known little but dictatorship, Maliki has long expressed doubt about the efficacy of his brawling partnership government of Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. But the move to arrest Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and a demand that parliament remove Maliki's Sunni deputy, Saleh al-Mutlaq, ignited a political storm that threatens Iraq's shaky...