Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi said on Friday he would offer his resignation to parliament to allow lawmakers to choose a new government, in a move that follows weeks of violent anti-government protests even as 15 more protesters were shot dead in restive Nasiriyah city.
Abdul Mahdi's decision came in response to a call for a change of leadership on Friday by Iraq's top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, his office said in a statement.
"In response to this call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand (to accept) my resignation from the leadership of the current government," said the statement, signed by Abdul Mahdi.
Parliament is due to convene on Sunday.
The Shia cleric on Friday warned of civil war. Sistani said the parliament that voted the government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi is “invited to reconsider its choices in that regard,” in his weekly Friday sermon delivered in Najaf, where the Iranian consulate was torched on Wednesday night.
Sistani also said protesters should distinguish between peaceful demonstrators and those with have malign intentions to coopt their movement.
Nasiriyah bloodbath
Fifteen more protesters were shot dead and dozens wounded in flashpoint southern city of Nasiriyah on Friday, medics said, in the second consecutive day of deadly clashes.
The latest clashes between security forces and demonstrators erupted outside the police headquarters in the city, prompting the police chief to resign, according to local authorities.
Also on Friday, thousands of defiant Iraqi protesters regrouped across the country's south after nearly 45 protesters were killed in one of the bloodiest days of anti-government rallies yet.
Thursday's violence marked a dangerous new turn for the anti-government movement rocking the country for nearly two months, as men dressed in civilian clothes shot at demonstrators and tribal fighters deployed in the streets in their defence.
More than 400 people have died and some 15,000 have been wounded since the protests erupted in Iraq's capital and Shia-majority south on October 1 against a government accused of corruption and inefficiency.
The demonstrations have been the bloodiest grassroots protests in strife-torn Iraq in a decade and the single bloodiest day was Thursday, when 46 were killed and nearly 1,000 wounded, most of them across the south, according to medics and rights groups.
Nasiriyah
The bulk of the dead, 29, fell in the southern protest hotspot of Nasiriyah, and thousands hit the streets to mourn them on Friday.
Large crowds also gathered in the city's main squares to demand the government step down and others used burning tires to block highways leading north.
Three protesters were wounded in confrontations outside Nasiryah's main police headquarters, according to medics.
Carrying coffins
In Baghdad, where four people died on Thursday, protesters dug into their main camp at Tahrir (Liberation) Square despite skirmishes with security forces.
And in the shrine city of Najaf, a massive funeral procession wound its way through the streets carrying coffins of some of the 12 people who were killed there the previous day.
The new unrest in Iraq's south was unleashed after protesters stormed the Iranian consulate in Najaf late on Wednesday, accusing the neighbouring country of propping up Iraq's government.
Tehran demanded Iraq take decisive action against the protesters, saying it was "disgusted" with developments.
In response, PM Mahdi ordered military chiefs to deploy in several provinces to "impose security and restore order" – but chaos reigned instead.
As the death toll climbed late into the evening, the premier sacked the commander he had dispatched to Nasiriyah and the governor based in the city resigned.
Police officers said they had received orders on Thursday to "finish off" the rallies but the disastrous developments in Nasiriyah put a halt to those plans.
'War zone'
The violence was condemned worldwide, with Amnesty International denouncing a "bloodbath" in Nasiriyah.
"The scenes from Nasiriyah on Thursday morning more closely resemble a war zone than city streets and bridges," said Lynn Maalouf of the London-based rights group.
Baghdad and the south have been rocked by the most widespread street unrest since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Protesters are seeking an overhaul of the ruling elite, accused of corruption and embezzling state funds in a country scarred by decades of conflict and where infrastructure is failing.
Iraq is OPEC's second-largest crude producer but one in five Iraqis lives in poverty and youth unemployment stands at 25 percent, according to the World Bank.
Demonstrators have also called out Iraq's large eastern neighbour Iran, accusing it of political, economic and military overreach.
The two countries have close but complex ties and Tehran holds significant sway among Iraqi political and military leaders.
Top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani has held several meetings in Baghdad and Najaf to convince political factions to close ranks around Abdul Mahdi.
Those meetings reportedly brought firebrand cleric Muqtada Sadr back into the fold after he called on the embattled premier to resign.
On Thursday, Sadr said it would "be the beginning of the end for Iraq" if the government did not step down.