Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's rebel-turned-leader who Monday saw his bid for a third term fall apart, rose from anonymous exile to powerful premier but lost support as the country's security collapsed.

President Fuad Masum tasked Haidar al-Abadi, a member of Maliki's Dawa party, with forming a new government, ignoring the two-term premier's defiant insistence that he should keep the top job.

Maliki, a 63-year-old Shiite Arab, had previously said he would sue Masum, a Kurd, for violating the constitution, and ordered a massive security deployment in Baghdad.

It is a dramatic shift from 2006, when Maliki was regarded as a weak compromise candidate who emerged from the shadows to become premier.

He has since undergone several transformations, from a nationalist who battled militias within his own Shiite community and brought violence under control to being accused of amassing power and sidelining partners.

Maliki's past eight years were markedly different from his life before the 2003 US-led invasion.

Born Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in a predominantly Shiite town south of Baghdad, he joined the Islamic Dawa party -- the oldest Iraqi movement opposed to Saddam Hussein -- while at university.

He fled in 1979 after the dictator banned the party, and Dawa says he was later sentenced to death in absentia.

From 1980, he lived in Iran and then Syria, where he edited Dawa's newspaper. In exile, he adopted the nom de guerre Jawad and coordinated cross-border raids from Iran into Iraq.

He returned after Saddam's ouster in the 2003 US-led invasion and became a member of the de-Baathification commission that barred Saddam supporters from public office.

- Thrust to power -

In 2006, the dour bespectacled politician was named premier after his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari, also a Shiite, was regarded as too sectarian by Sunnis and Kurds.

Thrust to power at the height of Iraq's brutal sectarian war that killed thousands of people each month, Maliki was seen then as politically weak.

But he stayed in office and pursued an offensive against the militia of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr with US military backing in 2008.

The successful assault won him plaudits across the communal spectrum, and he staked his reputation as a nationalist leader who had brought Iraq's raging violence under some semblance of control.

Under Maliki, American forces withdrew in late 2011 and oil production has steadily increased.

Since being re-elected premier in 2010 at the head of a national unity government, however, Maliki has faced near-constant political crises.

His critics accuse him of consolidating power, particularly within the security forces, and blame him for a sharp deterioration in security.

Maliki responded to the rising bloodshed, which has spiked since April 2013, with wide-ranging military operations that resulted in hundreds of arrests but failed to curb the violence.

And he made little in the way of meaningful concessions to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, whose widespread anger with the Shiite-led government has been a major factor in the increased violence.

Iraqi security forces lost control of all of one city and part of another west of Baghdad to insurgents early this year, and jihadist-led militants launched a sweeping offensive in June that has overrun large areas of five provinces.

Maliki has steadfastly blamed external factors such as the civil war in Syria for the surge in unrest, making no mention of the role his government and policies have played.

But as the crisis dragged on, Maliki lost support from Washington and even some members of his own Shiite majority, and his bid to maintain power seems to have been irreparably damaged.

Maliki's eight years in power
Baghdad (AFP) Aug 11, 2014 - Here are the main dates of the eight years in power of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq, whose president on Monday appointed Haidar al-Abadi as his successor:

--2006--

- April 22: Newly-re-elected President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, announces that he asked Maliki, a Shiite, to form the next government, replacing Ibrahim Jaafari, who was contested by Sunnis and Kurds.

- May 21: A national unity cabinet is sworn in, dominated by Maliki's United Iraqi Alliance which won most seats in parliamentary election.

- October 11: Parliament approves a law allowing the country's 18 provinces to hold referendums to merge themselves into larger federal regions with a measure of self-government.

The law was opposed by some in the minority Sunni community, who feared that their group would be left only with a rump territory in the barren west and centre of the country.

--2007--

- August 14, 2007: At least 400 are killed in the most deadly attacks since the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein in the US-led invasion of 2003, targeting members of the ancient Kurdish-speaking Yazidi religious sect in the northern province of Nineveh. Al-Qaeda is blamed.

In spite of the deployment of some 155,000 US soldiers, since the blowing up of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, on February 22, 2006, Iraq goes through a bloody sectarian war that costs tens of thousands of lives up until 2008.

--2010--

- March 7: Parliamentary elections marred by sectarianism. Shiites vote for Maliki's State of Law Alliance and the United Iraqi Alliance, while Sunnis vote for the secular Iraqiya bloc of Iyad Allawi. Neither side has enough seats to form a government.

- November: Political leaders announce a deal on the ethnic and sectarian make-up of the three main posts -- president, prime minister, and speaker of parliament. Talabani is re-elected president and Maliki named prime minister.

- December 20: A government of national unity is set up, and completed in February, with Maliki holding the three vacant security porfolios on an interim basis.

--2011--

- February 3: The start of protests calling for improved public services, more jobs and less corruption and for broader political reforms.

- December 18: US troops complete their withdrawal, ending nearly nine years of occupation, leaving country mired in a political crisis.

A day later an arrest warrant is issued for Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who takes refuge in Kurdistan. Iraqiya bloc briefly boycotts the cabinet.

--2012--

- December 23: The start of major protests, particularly in the Sunni province of Anbar, demanding Maliki's ouster and accusing him of monopolising power and discriminating against Sunnis.

--2013--

- April 23: Start of a week of clashes in Hawijah in northern Iraq between security forces and anti-government protesters allegedly infiltrated by militants that leave more than 240 dead.

According to the NGO Iraq Body Count, 2013 was the deadliest year since 2008, with 9,475 civilians killed.

--2014--

- January 2-4: Iraq loses control of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Anbar province to Al-Qaeda-linked fighters, after security forces cleared an anti-government protest camp in December.

- April 30: Maliki wins the most seats in the first general election since US troops departed, but his State of Law alliance falls short of an overall majority.

- June 10: Hundreds of Sunni Arab militants, led by radical jihadists, seize Iraq's second biggest city Mosul as government forces take flight. They go on to seize broad swathes of territory in the north and the west. On August 8, US jets strike jihadist positions.

- August 11: President Fuad Masum tasks Abadi with forming a government, moments after he was selected as nominee for prime minister by the National Alliance bloc.