Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki announced on Thursday that he is dropping his bid for a third term as prime minister and pledged support for his replacement, Haider al-Abadi. (Reuters) 
 
 Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki announced on Thursday that he is dropping his bid for a third term as prime minister and pledged support for his replacement, Haider al-Abadi. (Reuters) 
 
 Embattled Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki stepped aside Thursday, clearing the way for a new prime minister and an expansion of U.S. military assistance at a moment when a raging insurgency threatens to tear the country apart. 
 
 The 64-year-old premier, who had provoked a political crisis by refusing to cede power after eight years, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his rival Haider al-Abadi in an appearance on state television, as Maliki announced that he will back the efforts of his “brother” in forming a government for the sake of Iraq’s unity. 
 
 Maliki has become a deeply divisive figure but had clung to his position in the face of a growing consensus among Iraq’s politicians and the international community that only a new leader would have a chance of unifying a country experiencing growing sectarian divisions. Maliki, a Shiite, had been accused of marginalizing the minority Sunni population, providing an opening for Sunni extremist fighters belonging to the al-Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State. 
 
 His refusal to step aside had split his party and his political bloc. In recent days, Maliki had raised fears of a coup by ordering his security forces onto the streets as Abadi’s name was forwarded to form a government. But his resignation speech on Thursday was heralded as historic in a region where the smooth handover of power in a democratic framework is rare. 
 
 “I announce before you today, to facilitate the functioning of the political process and the formation of a new government, the withdrawal of my candidacy in favor of brother Haider al-Abadi,” Maliki said during the speech, in which he listed his achievements since taking office in 2006. 
 
 Iraq’s president named prominent Shiite politician Haider al-Abadi as new prime minister and has asked him to form a new government. The move dislodges Nouri al-Maliki, who has been widely blamed for the growth of the Islamic State. (The Washington Post) 
 
 The White House commended Maliki for backing down and noted that leaders from across the Iraqi political spectrum and “all over the world” indicated they were committed to supporting Abadi, who, like Maliki, is a Shiite. 
 
 “These are encouraging developments that we hope can set Iraq on a new path and unite its people against the threat presented” by the Islamic State, said a statement by Susan E. Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. “The United States remains committed to a strong partnership with Iraq and the Iraqi people.” 
 
 Maliki’s removal opens the door for further U.S. military support to Iraq. A week ago, an American air campaign was launched in the country’s north, where Islamic State militants have been threatening the forces of the semiautonomous Kurdish region and driving huge numbers of refugees — many from minority religious groups — to flee their homes. 
 
 Obama and other senior officials have repeatedly referred in recent weeks to their hopes for a new government in Iraq, and they warned that greater U.S. assistance in fending off the extremists depended on Maliki’s replacement with a more suitable candidate. 
 
 In Baghdad and Irbil, the Kurdish region’s capital, U.S. officials were actively involved in trying to persuade Iraqi political leaders to come to agreement on new leadership. Once Abadi had been asked to form a government, the administration immediately began addressing him as the “prime minister designate,” and Obama called him with congratulations this week. 
 
 In comments Thursday before Maliki’s announcement, Obama said that Abadi “still has a challenging task in putting a government together, but we are modestly hopeful that the Iraqi government situation is moving in the right direction.” 
 
 In his speech, Maliki said he had withdrawn the legal case he had lodged against President Fouad Massoum for nominating Abadi to form a government. Maliki had argued that he should have been tasked with forming the next government, because the bloc he led had won the most parliamentary seats in nationwide elections in April. 
 
 Maliki was persuaded to stand down after a meeting with senior members of his party Thursday evening, said Saad al-Muttalibi, who belongs to the ruling State of Law coalition. “The problem is resolved,” Muttalibi said. 
 
 Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, played a role in ushering Maliki out, repeatedly hinting in his Friday sermons that he supported a change and finally writing to Maliki’s Dawa party to advise the selection of a new prime minister. Crucially, Iran, which wields significant influence in Iraqi politics, had also backed Abadi. 
 
 “He was at a dead-end road,” said Ibrahim al-Ulloum, a senior member of the Shiite Muwatin party. “But hopefully this will help to bring stability.” 
 
 Still, despite the broad endorsements of Abadi, there are concerns that he will be seen as too closely associated with Maliki’s tenure. Abadi is a long-term member of the Dawa party who has regularly appeared as a spokesman for the outgoing premier. 
 
 “He’s going to face the same problems as Maliki; [the Islamic State] is not going to go away,” said Hayder al-Khoei, an Iraq 
 
 analyst at the London-based Chatham House think tank. “It’s not rosy pink. The outlook is bleak, but there’s hope at least.” 
 
 DeYoung reported from Washington. Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report. ||||| Maliki says he has accepted the candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated by the president to form a government 
 
 Nouri al-Malki, the embattled prime minister of Iraq, announced on Thursday that he was stepping down after support from his party and associates in parliament slipped away. 
 
 In a speech, Iraq’s two-term leader Maliki said that he accepted the candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated last week by the Iraqi president to form a government. 
 
 Maliki had been struggling for weeks to stay for a third four-year term as prime minister amid an attempt by opponents to push him out, accusing him of monopolising power and pursuing a fiercely pro-Shiite agenda that has alienated the Sunni minority. 
 
 The pressure intensified this week when his Shiite political alliance backed another member of his party, Abadi, to replace him, and President Fouad Massoum nominated Abadi to form the next government. 
 
 Maliki for days has refused to step aside, saying the nomination violates the constitution. But in a meeting of his Dawa party on Thursday evening, Maliki agreed to endorse Abadi as the next prime minister. The former leader is understood to be seeking indemnity from any prosecution, as well as a role in the new government. 
 
 By stepping aside, Maliki ends his legal challenge to al-Abadi’s nomination as leader, which he had launched earlier in the week after learning that he would not be asked by new President, Fouad Massoum to form a government. 
 
 With his announcement, Maliki was bowing to the inevitable. He had lost the support of his party, of the president, the parliament, the Americans, Saudis and finally the Iranian government, his biggest foreign ally and sponsor. Even the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, issued a statement pointedly welcoming the appointment of Abadi. 
 
 But the confirmation of a new prime minister is only a small - albeit essential – step towards the huge task now facing the new government in Baghdad, which must knit the country back together again following its spectacular and violent unravelling this year. National cohesion will take a lot longer to recreate that it did to lose. The tribal structures of the Sunni population, which would have to be the building blocks of national reconstruction, have been severely damaged by Isis brutal sweep through the country. 
 
 Abadi however, has the great advantage of not being Maliki, whose narrow sectarian approach to government and brutal methods, made him a hate figure for Sunnis, and ultimately a liability for the Iraqi Shia and for Iran. 
 
 Like his successor, Maliki rose from obscurity to power, in large part due to the frustration of the US with existing prime minister Ibrahim Jafari. Installed in 2006 with US backing, Maliki’s star rose within American circles in 2007 when he permitted US forces to pursue the Shia militia of Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad and later ordered his own to attack the militia in Basra. 
 
 But Washington’s faith concealed a growing vindictiveness toward his rivals. US officials nervously watched him arrest Sunni ex-insurgents who had agreed to fight al-Qaida. In 2008 he outmaneuvered US diplomats seeking a long-term presence in Iraq, a precursor to the lack of Iraqi support in 2011 for a residual force. 
 
 Once US forces left, Maliki accelerated his consolidation of power, installing loyalists in key military and security positions. He ordered the arrest of the top Sunni in the government. As sectarian violence returned to Baghdad, Maliki proved unable to stop it, even as Iraqis came to see him as a miniature Saddam Hussein. 
 
 His alienation from Washington was on stark display last fall when he visited Obama with an urgent request for weaponry, including a long-delayed sale of F-16s. Maliki returned to Baghdad with little more than a pledge of Hellfire missiles and Apache attack helicopters. Isis was at his doorstep. 
 
 Maliki’s resignation paves the way for closer US military assistance to stop Isis, which occupies three cities, much of Iraq’s rural heart, and continues to menace Baghdad. Isis also controls most of the border between Iraq and Syria, has emptied the Ninevah plains of minorities that have co-existed for several thousand years and advanced towards the Kurdish capital, Irbil. 
 
 Iraq’s new leader has pledged to work on building bridges between the Shia-led Government, the Sunnis and the Kurds. Central government control has whittled away as Isis has seized ground and public confidence in the political class has tanked. 
 
 With al-Abadi facing no further legal hurdles, he now has 26 days to form a government. Iraq’s constitution gives a nominated prime minister 30 days to do so, however the past four days had been consumed by Maliki refusing to leave. 
 
 US officials have indicated that an inclusive central government would make it easier for them to provide the same sort of military support they had to the Kurds in recent weeks. Airstrikes have slowed the momentum of Isis near Irbil and in the country’s northwest. However Barack Obama has ignored persistent pleas from Baghdad for similar help, insisting that political unity first be established. ||||| Media caption The writing was on the wall for Mr Maliki, says the BBC's Jim Muir 
 
 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has resigned, in a move observers hope will end a political crisis in Baghdad. 
 
 Haider al-Abadi, a deputy speaker of parliament, has been asked by Iraq's president to form a government. 
 
 Mr Maliki's earlier refusal to resign after eight years in power had been blamed for deepening the crisis. The UN and US have welcomed his resignation. 
 
 The government has been unable to stop Islamist fighters from seizing vast areas in northern Iraq. 
 
 The offensive by the self-styled Islamic State (IS), a Sunni Muslim jihadist group formerly known as Isis, has triggered a security and humanitarian crisis, driving an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis from their homes. 
 
 Media caption Paul Wood reports from Mount Sinjar, from where many refugees have escaped, but some 'stragglers' remain 
 
 'Brother Abadi' 
 
 Appearing on state TV flanked by Mr Abadi and other politicians from the Shia Muslim majority, Mr Maliki spoke of the grave "terrorist" threat from IS before announcing his own exit. 
 
 "I announce before you today, to ease the movement of the political process and the formation of the new government, the withdrawal of my candidacy in favour of brother Doctor Haider al-Abadi," he said. 
 
 Analysis: Jim Muir, northern Iraq 
 
 His eight years in office, Mr Maliki said, had been spent combating a mounting wave of terrorism and subversion. He insisted that he had stuck to the law and avoided violence even when he had come under personal attack but now, he said, he did not want to be the cause of the shedding of a single drop of blood. 
 
 There had been fears that Mr Maliki might use the power base he built up through his control of the armed forces to stay in power. 
 
 But, with his own party and the Shia clerical establishment, not to mention influential outside powers such as Iran and America and the entire international community backing Mr Abadi, the writing was clearly on the wall for Mr Maliki's hopes of clinging to power. 
 
 He had earlier insisted that he should have the right to form the government, as leader of the biggest bloc in parliament. 
 
 The resignation brought an end to eight years of often divisive rule, when Mr Maliki's government was accused of favouring the Shia majority. 
 
 Critics say Mr Maliki's sectarian policies had precipitated the current crisis. 
 
 Mr Abadi is one of Iraq's most senior politicians, having held several high-profile posts since returning from exile in 2003. 
 
 He is regarded by some as a moderate within Mr Maliki's Dawa party, and has shown more of a willingness to compromise than his predecessor. 
 
 US support 
 
 US National Security Adviser Susan Rice praised Mr Maliki's decision to step down, describing it as a "major step" towards uniting Iraq. 
 
 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Mr Maliki's withdrawal "will allow the crucial process to form a new government to proceed swiftly". 
 
 "An inclusive, broad-based government ready to immediately tackle... pressing issues" was needed, he added. 
 
 Earlier, US President Barack Obama offered his support to the prime minister-designate. 
 
 Media caption US President Obama: "The situation on the mountain has greatly improved" 
 
 "He [Mr Abadi] still has a challenging task in putting a government together, but we are modestly hopeful that the... situation is moving in the right direction," Mr Obama said. 
 
 Mr Obama also paid tribute to US forces for an operation in the north of Iraq that he said has helped tens of thousands of people displaced by IS. 
 
 Many of them, mostly from the Christian and Yazidi religious minorities, were besieged on Mount Sinjar after being forced to flee their homes. 
 
 Mr Obama said US forces had helped break the siege and the situation had greatly improved. 
 
 Media caption The BBC's Caroline Wyatt spent the day at a hospital in Dohuk where the doctors have been treating Yazidi refugees 
 
 Thousands of Yazidis have reached camps inside Iraq's Kurdish region, most with no possessions but the clothes on their backs, AFP news agency reports from Dohuk. 
 
 Conditions in the camps are spartan, with one man, Khodr Hussein, saying: "We went from hunger in Sinjar to hunger in this camp." 
 
 In other developments:
– Nouri al-Maliki finally took the hint: He's giving up his fight to serve a third term as prime minister of Iraq, reports the BBC. State TV says Maliki has agreed to step down in favor of Haider al-Ibadi, even though Maliki had called Ibadi's appointment unconstitutional and raised fears of a coup by deploying his elite security forces in Baghdad. “The problem is resolved," a member of Maliki’s State of Law coalition tells the Washington Post. Maliki has given Ibadi his "full backing" and "emphasized the need for unity.” Maliki was expected to address the nation tonight. Iraq's president has given Ibadi 30 days to form a government, and the US is pushing him to do what Maliki would not—establish one that includes Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in substantive ways. That's a big reason that while Maliki has been in power for eight years, the White House is happy to see him go. With today's move, Maliki was "bowing to the inevitable," write Julian Borger and Spencer Ackerman in the Guardian. "He had lost the support of his party, of the president, the parliament, the Americans, Saudis and finally the Iranian government, his biggest foreign ally and sponsor."