Iraq's final election results have given the country's main Shi'ite coalition a slim majority in the interim National Assembly, but officials say it could take weeks to choose a new prime minister.
The United Iraqi Alliance won 140 of the 275 seats. Alliance members say they are in talks with other lawmakers to reach the two-thirds majority needed to approve a president and two vice presidents. Those leaders will then appoint a prime minister. A coalition of Kurdish parties won 75 seats, and interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Shi'ite party took 40. Sunni Muslims, who mostly boycotted the election, won only five seats. Meanwhile, a video broadcast Thursday showed a Swedish citizen kidnapped in Iraq asking Swedish King Carl Gustaf and Pope John Paul to help bring about his release. And a car bomb killed a US soldier in Mosul.