BAGHDAD (AP) -- Prominent Shiite leaders pushed Thursday for
the removal of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as
parliament prepared to start work next week on putting
together a new government, under intense U.S. pressure to
rapidly form a united front against an unrelenting Sunni
insurgent onslaught.
Increasingly, the Shiite al-Maliki's
former allies believe he cannot lead an inclusive government
that can draw minority Sunnis away from support for the
fighters who have swept over a large swath of Iraq as they
head toward the capital, Baghdad. In a further sign of
Iraq's unraveling along sectarian lines, a bombing on
Thursday killed 12 people in a Shiite neighborhood of
Baghdad that houses a revered shrine, and police found the
bullet-riddled bodies of eight Sunnis south of the capital.
Most crucially, though, backing for
al-Maliki is weakening with his most important ally,
neighboring Iran.
A senior Iranian general who met with
Shiite politicians in Iraq during a 10-day visit this month
returned home with a list of potential prime minister
candidates for Iran's leadership to consider, several senior
Iraqi Shiite politicians who have knowledge of the general's
meetings told The Associated Press.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, wants al-Maliki to remain in his post, at least
for now, the politicians said, but Iran's moderate
president, Hassan Rouhani, believes al-Maliki must go or
else Iraq will fragment. Khamenei holds final say in all
state matters in Iran, but the politicians expressed doubt
he would insist on al-Maliki against overwhelming rejection
of him by Iraq's Shiite parties.
The general, Ghasem Soleimani, is
expected to return within days to inform Iraqi politicians
of Tehran's favorite, they said, speaking on condition of
anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.
Iran's Shiite cleric-led government
succeeded in herding reluctant Shiite parties into backing
al-Maliki for a second term four years ago, and its leverage
over Iraq's Shiite political establishment has grown
significantly since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops after
an eight-year presence.
Non-Arab and mostly Shiite, Iran has
found in majority Shiite Iraq a convenient vehicle to extend
its sphere of regional influence to the heart of the Middle
East. Iran's leverage in Iraq also gives it a trump card
against its Sunni rivals in the Gulf region, where
powerhouse Saudi Arabia, for example, has traditionally
viewed Tehran with suspicion.
The United States and its allies are
pushing for the creation of a government that can draw
support among Iraq's Sunni minority, which has been
alienated by al-Maliki, seen as a fiercely partisan Shiite.
British Foreign Secretary William
Hague, meeting with al-Maliki in Baghdad on Thursday, told a
news conference that "we believe the urgent priority must be
to form an inclusive government ... that can command the
support of all Iraqis and work to stop terrorists and their
terrible crimes."
Hague's trip follows a visit by U.S
Secretary of State John Kerry, who earlier this week
delivered a similar message.
Kerry met in Paris on Thursday with
foreign ministers from America's top Sunni Arab allies to
consider how to confront the al-Qaida breakaway group
leading the Sunni insurgent offensive, the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant. The threat "concerns every single
country here," Kerry told them at the start of the meeting,
held at the U.S. ambassador's residence.
The Arab diplomats did not commit to
sending any military assistance to Baghdad, as the U.S. is
doing. The Pentagon said Thursday that four teams of Army
special forces have arrived in Baghdad, bringing the number
of American troops there to 90 out of the 300 promised by
President Barack Obama. The Americans will advise and assist
Iraqi counterterrorism forces.
The Obama administration hopes that
Iraq's Sunni neighbors - notably Jordan and Saudi Arabia -
will use their cross-border tribal networks to bolster the
Sunni militias helping to fight the Islamic State. However,
while they feel threatened by the Islamic State, those Sunni
countries are also bitterly opposed to al-Maliki, saying his
Shiite-dominated rule has marginalized Iraq's Sunnis.
So far, al-Maliki has defied calls to
step aside. In April elections, his State of the Law bloc
won the largest proportion in parliament - 92 seats in the
328-member chamber - but that is not enough for the simple
majority needed to name him prime minister.
He no longer has the support of his
former Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni allies in his previous
coalition.
"We need a government of national
consensus. Now, who do you think will not be able to achieve
consensus?" said Baleigh Abu Qolal, spokesman for a major
Shiite party, the Iranian-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi
Council.
Compounding the pressure on al-Maliki,
a prominent Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, called in a
televised statement late Wednesday for a national unity
government of "new faces" representing all groups.
Al-Sadr, whose followers fought
fiercely against both U.S. forces and Sunni extremists
during the height of the war nearly a decade ago, also vowed
to "shake the ground" under the feet of the Sunni
insurgents, who have threatened to advance toward Baghdad
and holy Shiite cities in the south.
Also, Iraq's most revered and
influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
appealed to al-Maliki through an intermediary to step aside
because he fears al-Maliki is driving Iraq into
fragmentation, according to a senior member of a prominent
Shiite family that has for decades maintained regular
contact with al-Sistani.
"Al-Sistani is in his 80s and if there
is one thing he does not want to see in his lifetime, it is
an Iraq breaking up into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish
enclaves," the senior family member told the AP.
Al-Sistani, believed to be 86, lives
in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, where he
rarely ventures out of his modest house. But his voice is
powerful: His call to arms last week prompted tens of
thousands of Shiites to volunteer to fight against the Sunni
militants.
Notably, Soleimani, the Iranian
general, met for two hours with al-Sistani's powerful son,
Mohammed Reda, in Najaf, the Shiite politicians said.
The list of potential candidates that
Soleimani is carrying includes Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a
French-educated economist who has served as vice president;
Bayan Jabr, a former finance and interior minister under
al-Maliki; and former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the
politicians said. But al-Maliki may insist that, if he goes,
another figure from his State of the Law bloc get the post,
giving him a continuing influence, they said.
The United States is pressing for
parliament to act quickly on forming the new government, a
process that took nine months in 2010. "Our concern will
increase with every passing day" that the timetable is not
met, a senior State Department official said, speaking on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of
discussions over the Iraqi political process.
Iraq's vice president called on the
new parliament to convene Tuesday, when, under the
constitution, its first step will be to elect a speaker. It
then has 30 days to elect a new president, replacing ailing
Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani, who has held the post for
two terms and is ineligible for another. The president's job
will likely go to Kurdish politician Barham Saleh, a former
deputy prime minister.
The president will have 15 days to
mandate the head of parliament's largest bloc to form a new
government. That prime minister-designate will then have 30
days to put together a coalition.
With Iraq's bitterly divided sects
focused on self-interests, the country's top Kurdish leader,
Massoud Barzani, vowed Thursday to maintain control of the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk, seized by Kurdish forces,
ostensibly to defend it from the Islamic State fighters.
"We will remain here together in
Kirkuk," Barzani declared during a tour of the city, which
the Kurds have long sought to incorporate into their
self-rule region.
The frequent discovery in recent weeks
of bullet-riddled bodies dumped on the streets has raised
the specter of a return of sectarian warfare.
On Thursday, authorities found eight
men believed to be Sunnis in their 30s and 40s who had been
shot to death in Mahmoudiya, a volatile town about 20 miles
(30 kilometers) south of Bagdad, police and hospital
officials said.
Then, shortly before sunset, a bomb
exploded near a clothing shop in Baghdad's northern Shiite
neighborhood of Kazimiyah, killing 12 people and wounding
32, authorities said.
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Associated Press writer Lara Jakes in
Paris, Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and Diaa Hadid in Irbil
contributed to this report.