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Iraq's parliament officially named Haider al-Abadi the country's new prime minister late on Monday and approved most of his proposed cabinet amid calls by the Arab League for its members to combat the Sunni militant group violently advancing across Iraq and Syria.
Lawmakers approved all of the candidates proposed for Iraq's new government, with the exception of a few posts, namely the defense and interior ministers. Abadi requested an additional week to name them.
Outgoing prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, former prime minister Ayad Allawi and former speaker of parliament Osama al-Nujeifi were given the largely ceremonial posts of co-vice president. Kurdish politician and former Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was named as one of three deputy prime ministers.
The US and other countries have been pushing for a more representative government that will ease anger among Sunnis, who felt marginalised by al-Maliki's administration, fuelling the dramatic sweep by Islamic State over much of northern and western Iraq since June.
Speaking before parliament, Abadi vowed to "back the military operations in all the areas of confrontation against the armed gangs and the forces of terrorism and ensuring their continuation till victory is achieved."
The proposed resolution by the Arab League does not explicitly back an expanded American military operation targeting the group. It leaves room, however, for it to work with whatever approach Barack Obama lays out during his planned speech Wednesday on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.
That could give Obama enough leeway to gather support from Arab countries already divided over the Syrian civil war.
"There will be no signing on a white paper," said Mustafa Alani, the director of the security and defense department at the Gulf Research Center in Geneva. Arabs are looking for "equal efforts in changing the situation in Syria. Without it, it is a lost war."
On Monday, an Islamic State suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden Humvee, apparently seized from the Iraqi military, into the gathering of a major Sunni tribe, the Jabour, and security forces in the town of Duluiyah, some 80km (45 miles) north of Baghdad, a police officer said.
The explosion killed 16 people and wounded at least 55, according to the officer and a health official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists.
After the bombing, militants crossed a small river on Duluiyah's outskirts and attacked the town, setting off fierce clashes.
Islamic State claimed responsibility, saying two Saudi suicide bombers had targeted a police building and the gathering of Sunni militiamen. The authenticity of the online statement could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a Twitter account frequently used by the militant group. Iraqi officials said it knew of only one suicide attacker.
Duluiyah briefly fell to the Sunni-dominated Islamic State group for few days in July but the Jabour tribesmen, who have aligned themselves with the Iraqi forces in the battle against the extremists, took it back.
On Monday, Iraqi security forces retook the Anbar provincial town of Barwana, across the Euphrates River from the town of Haditha, about 220km (140 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
The US military said it carried out five airstrikes on Sunday and Monday using drones and attack fighters to help defend the Haditha dam, as well as Irbil, the Kurdish capital. It has conducted a total of 148 airstrikes in Iraq since 8 August.
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