Bowing to intense pressure, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has agreed to allow Shi’ite lawmakers to find someone else to head the new government, abandoning his claim on another term in the face of Sunni and Kurdish opposition. Al-Jaafari’s abrupt reversal was an apparent breakthrough in the struggle to form a national unity government.

Insurgents carried out two dramatic ambushes on Wednesday, killing 11 people, including two American civilians, in a roadside bombing in Basra and an attack on an Iraqi convoy in Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi officials expressed hope that American hostage Jill Carroll would eventually be released.

Thousands of Sunni demonstrators rallied in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Monday to denounce Iraq’s new Constitution a day after negotiators finished the new charter without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs. Sunni leaders have urged their community to defeat the charter in a nationwide referendum on October 15.