Shias reject calls for fresh polls in Iraq

Sunni Arab groups staged smaller demonstrations in the western Anbar city of Fallujah and in eastern Baqouba to support demands for a rerun of the parliamentary elections, which they claim were tainted by fraud.

At least 16 people were killed in violence around Iraq yesterday.

Two mortar rounds also landed near the heavily fortified Green Zone, and a roadside bomb damaged an American tank on a highway east of Baghdad. There were no immediate reports of injuries. AP Television News footage and photos showed an Abrams battle tank in flames.

A suicide car bomber slammed into two Iraqi army vehicles in central Baghdad, killing five soldiers and wounding seven police and civilians, police Maj. Mohammed Younis said.

Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi interior ministry civil servant and a mortar round slammed into Baghdad's high-security 'Green Zone' Sunday injuring a policeman, an interior ministry official said.

An explosive device also targeted US soldiers in the south of the city, but there was no immediate word as to casualties.

In the sprawling Shia slum of Sadr City, about 1,000 demonstrators held a rally to support preliminary results showing the governing United Iraqi Alliance, a religious Shia coalition, leading in the elections. They also chanted slogans denouncing former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shia whose party seems to have fared badly. His party has joined Sunni Arab groups complaining about the results.

The Alliance has called on Iraqis to accept the results and has been moving ahead with efforts to form a "national unity" government.

But the Shia religious bloc also deepened the post-election turmoil by claiming that Islamic extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists were at the forefront of those questioning the results.

In Fallujah, hundreds of demonstrators took part in a demonstration organized by the local government to protest the elections. All public offices were closed in the former insurgent stronghold.