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By Alexander Dziadosz and Raheem Salman BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An increasingly isolated Nuri al-Maliki again protested his removal as Iraqi prime minister on Wednesday, as his own political party and his former sponsor in Iran publicly endorsed a successor who many in Baghdad hope can halt advancing Sunni jihadists. Although abandoned by former backers in the United States and Iraq's Shi'ite political and religious establishment, Maliki pressed his legal claim on power. Premier-designate Haider al-Abadi, meanwhile, held consultations on forming a coalition government that can unite warring factions after eight years that drove Sunnis to revolt over what they say was Maliki's sectarian bias. Shi'ite-led government forces and their allies among the ethnic Kurdish militias of northern Iraq were in action on the front lines against the Sunni fighters of the Islamic State as European Union states began to follow the U.S. lead and provide arms directly to the Kurds and step up efforts to help tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the advancing hard-line Islamists.More...