PM may gain asylum in Iran
‘We are witnessing a tragedy’
Baghdad – Nouri al-Maliki’s efforts to cling to power suffered a heavy blow yesterday after Iran and several Iraqi militias backed by Tehran publicly withdrew their support.
Iran’s desertion of its former protege came a day after Fouad Massoum, Iraq’s new president, nominated his former close ally, Haider al-Abadi, to replace Maliki as prime minister. This followed a rebellion from within the ranks of his Shia coalition.
Maliki denounced the nomination as illegal, and deployed troops and militias loyal to him on the streets of Baghdad, raising fears that he would mount a military coup to stay in power.
Yesterday, however, he signalled that he was backing away from the threat of force, issuing a call ‘‘for security personnel to stay away from the political crisis and carry out their duties in protecting the country’’.
His statement came hours after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, appealed to Maliki to concede. Unconfirmed reports suggested that Tehran might offer Maliki asylum in return for a swift departure.
The prime minister also lost the support of several Iran-backed militias who have been crucial to consolidating his authoritarian rule. Asaib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous), the lead militia in the fight against the Islamic State, or Isis, announced that it was shifting its support to Abadi, a senior member of Maliki’s Dawa party.
The leaders of the Badr Organisation, another Iran-backed militia, also threw their backing behind Abadi.
The loss of militias dramatically reduces Maliki’s options for using force to try to keep his job, but the threat of violence between Shia groups remains, especially in Baghdad, where he still controls the nerve centre of government in the Green Zone.
‘‘Maliki is still so powerful,’’ said Hayder al-Khoei, an analyst at Chatham House, noting that the prime minister had systematically purged Iraq’s state institutions of opponents.
Iran’s shift in support away from Maliki late last month prompted fellow Shias to abandon him. Another factor was a warning from Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani, Iraq’s top Shia cleric, that leaders should not cling to power, which prompted an angry rebuttal from Maliki.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said that with Maliki gone, Washington was ready to consider additional military and economic assistance to Iraq.
Abadi has been hailed as a less divisive figure than Maliki but analysts said he would be hard pressed to turn the crisis around. ‘‘It’ll change the mood music, but the structural faults in the Iraqi state that allowed the rise of Isis remain,’’ said Toby Dodge, of the London School of Economics. Geneva – United Nations rights monitors have called for the global community to take urgent action to avoid a potential genocide against the Yazidi community in Iraq.
Thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority are trapped on a mountain in northwestern Iraq with little food or water after Islamic State jihadists overran the region.
‘‘All possible measures must be taken urgently to avoid a mass atrocity and potential genocide within days or hours,’’ UN minority rights expert Rita Izsak said yesterday.
‘‘Civilians need to be protected on the ground and escorted out of situations of extreme peril.’’
The refugees are stranded on Mt Sinjar, besieged by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State who control much of northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
‘‘We are witnessing a tragedy of huge proportions unfolding, in which thousands of people are at immediate risk of death by violence or by hunger and thirst,’’ said Chaloka Beyani, UN monitor on refugee rights.
World Health Organisation spokesman Paul Garwood said two medical teams had reached the mountain, and supplies had been sent in by helicopter.
The United States and France have also dropped aid supplies.