IRAQ 5 explosions kill 7 and injure dozens

A rocket-propelled grenade killed a U.S. soldier.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Five explosions rocked various parts of the capital city Monday, killing at least seven Iraqis and wounding 30, while tying up traffic and spreading fears of a new upsurge in violence.
At least one U.S. soldier was also killed in Baghdad when his patrol vehicle was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, the U.S. military said .
Monday's explosions included two suicide car bombs, two remote-controlled car bombs and a possible motorcyclist bomber. Though they demonstrated no great strategic or tactical strides by insurgents, they did demonstrate the continued potency of Iraq's Sunni Arab-led rebellion, which has picked back up after a lull in the days after the Dec. 15 parliamentary vote meant to draw the minority Sunni population away from violence and into mainstream political life.
Current election results
Instead, the election has proved highly divisive. The latest partial election returns, which on Monday included out-of-country votes as well as the votes of Iraqi police, soldiers, emergency workers and prisoners, showed that Islamist Shiites and Kurds will together surpass the two-thirds majority of seats necessary to form a government. In January, the two groups formed a coalition that has run the government on an interim basis this year.
Sunni Arabs and secular candidates together are likely to receive most of the remaining 80 or so seats in the 275-seat legislature. According to results, which should be finalized early next month, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a pro-American candidate favored by Washington, will get about 25 of those seats, with about 8 percent of the popular vote.
Shiites and Kurds, who share similar aims as part of a decades-long strategic alliance against Saddam Hussein, are set to win 190 seats between them.
Fraud investigations
Election officials said they would continue investigating fraud allegations. The election commission was examining 950 ballot boxes, each with about 500 voters, from various parts of the country and abroad. Supporters of Allawi and the Sunni coalitions have alleged systematic voter fraud.
Investigators have determined voting fraud in three polling centers in Istanbul and plan to invalidate those votes, said an election commission official, and fine a television station run by the leading Shiite coalition for broadcasting disinformation shortly before the elections.
On Monday, a suicide car bomber slammed into a police patrol in the capital, leaving three dead, officials said, and a suicide motorcycle bomber rammed into a Shiite funeral ceremony, killing at least two, said Maj. Falah Mohamadawi of the Interior Ministry. A mortar then killed two people in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood.
A U.S. soldier was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle while on patrol in the capital, the military said.