Loading ...Iraq president asks Abadi to form new government
Analysis: Jim Muir, BBC Middle East correspondent
Although he has fought long and hard to hold on to his job as prime minister, it is hard to see how Nouri al-Maliki can continue to cling on.
For the past four years, Mr Maliki has held the defence, interior and intelligence portfolios, building up a powerful network of personal patronage among the security forces, estimated at more than a million strong, as well as setting up elite units directly responsive to him alone.
The question now is whether he will try to use the army and police forces to keep himself in power through an in situ coup, despite his lack of political support virtually across the board.
His State of Law coalition came out ahead in the April elections, but far short of an outright majority.
Having broadly alienated the Kurds and Sunnis, he now finds that even the Shia majority has concluded that he is not the man to weld the country together against the radical Islamist threat.