Iraq's president on Tuesday named pro-Western lawmaker Adnan Zurfi, a former Najaf city governor, as the next prime minister, tasked with ruling a country hit by military unrest, street protests and the coronavirus outbreak.
The nomination came hours after two rockets hit an Iraqi military base hosting US-led coalition and NATO troops, the third such attack within a week, without causing casualties according to military officials.
Lawmaker Zurfi, 54, is the former governor of the Shia holy city of Najaf and once belonged to the Dawa party, an opposition force to ex-dictator Saddam Hussein who was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion.
Rockets hit base
Zurfi's nomination comes at an especially tumultuous time for Iraq, which has been battered by almost six months of street protests, collapsing oil prices, the novel coronavirus outbreak and the renewed rocket attacks, which Washington blames on pro-Iranian forces. A senior Iraqi government source told AFP that political factions had intensely debated names for days, seeking a "non-confrontational" figure.
An earlier nominee, Mohammad Allawi, had failed to form a cabinet by March 2, triggering a new 15-day deadline for Saleh that was set to end late Tuesday. The president's announcement came just hours after the two rockets hit the Besmaya base about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of Baghdad, according to the Iraqi military, the US-led coalition and NATO, all of which have forces stationed there.
US-led coalition sources said later they would redeploy hundreds of troops from bases in Iraq, sending some of them outside the country, but denied the move was a response to the recent spike in rocket attacks.
Three coalition troops were killed on March 11 in an attack on the Taji airbase, which was targeted again on March 14. There have been 24 rocket attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad or bases where foreign troops are deployed since late October, killing a total of three American military personnel, one British soldier and one Iraqi soldier.
None of the attacks have been claimed, but Washington has blamed Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed faction in the Hashed, which has been nominally incorporated into the Iraqi state's armed forces.