BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – An alliance of Shiite religious parties won the most seats in Iraq’s new parliament but not enough to rule without coalition partners, the election commission said Friday. Sunni Arabs gained seats over previous balloting.

A top Sunni politician, meanwhile, appealed for the release of American journalist Jill Carroll and urged U.S. and Iraqi forces to stop arresting Iraqi women, as a deadline set by kidnappers was set to expire.

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance captured 128 of the 275 seats in the Dec. 15 election, down from the 146 it won in January 2005 balloting, said commission official Safwat Rasheed. It needed 138 to rule without partners.

A Sunni ticket, the Iraqi Accordance Front, won 44 seats. Another Sunni coalition headed by Saleh al-Mutlaq finished with 11 seats, Rasheed said. A few other Sunnis won seats on other tickets.

That will give the Sunni Arabs a bigger voice in the legislature than they had in the outgoing assembly, which included only 17 from the community forming the backbone of the insurgency. Many Sunnis had boycotted the January vote.

Despite a better showing, one Sunni politician, Salman al-Jumaili, expressed disappointment and renewed complaints about election irregularities. Nevertheless, he said the Sunnis will “take part in the coming (parliament) and government and present our (election) challenges to the Iraqi judicial system.”

Kurds saw their seat total reduced. An alliance of the two major Kurdish parties won 53 seats, down from the 75 they took in the January 2005 vote.

A rival Kurdish ticket, the Kurdish Islamic Group, won five seats, a gain of three from the outgoing parliament.

A ticket headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, won 25 seats, down from 40 in the outgoing assembly. The United States installed Allawi as interim prime minister in 2004 and applauded both his tough stand against insurgents and his secular approach to politics.

This time, however, U.S. diplomats appeared resigned to the fact that Iraqis would generally vote along sectarian lines and that secular candidates would not fare well.

U.S. officials here had said privately they hoped only that religious Shiites would win fewer seats to curb their power somewhat, and that more-moderate Sunnis candidates like Adnan al-Dulaimi would fare better than hard-liners _ which was the case.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Tom Casey said the Americans would “continue to support efforts of Iraq’s political leaders to form a unity government.”

Saad Asem al-Janabi, a prominent member of Allawi’s ticket, said his group’s showing was unexpected and “a real disappointment for the democracy in Iraq.”

“These results are not true and the Iraqi national unity is facing a real threat from foreign elements to divide Iraq,” he said in apparent reference to the Shiite religious parties, which some Iraqis consider tied too closely to Iran.

Sunnis fared better _ and Kurds poorer _ because of a change in the election law between the two national elections last year. In the January 2005 balloting, seats were allocated based on the percentage of votes that tickets won nationwide.

Last month, candidates competed for seats by district. This meant that Sunnis were all but guaranteed seats from predominantly Sunni areas.

Politicians have four days to contest the results, which were largely in line with preliminary returns. Officials then will have 10 days to study any complaints before they certify the results and parliament convenes to appoint a new government.

U.S. officials hope that a greater Sunni voice in political affairs will help defuse the insurgency so American and other international troops can begin withdrawing.

The results were announced a day after an international review group said the election was flawed but generally fair, considering Iraq’s security crisis. Sunni politicians had demanded the review after raising allegations of fraud. Al-Mutlaq had called for a new election.

The decision to have the election reviewed by outside experts was an attempt to mollify Sunni complaints and encourage them to join the political process.

Sunni Arabs dominated political life in Iraq for generations but are believed to comprise about 20 percent of the country’s estimated 27 million people. Shiites form about 60 percent and Kurds 15-20 percent.

Many Sunnis contest those figures and assumed they would win more seats since the voting in Iraq’s three ballots after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein has been along sectarian lines.

Al-Dulaimi appealed to the kidnappers of Carroll to release the 28-year-old freelance journalist for the Christian Science Monitor. The kidnappers had threatened to kill her unless all female detainees were freed by Friday. No hour was specified, and there was no indication Friday that any prisoners had been released.

In a statement aired Friday by two major Arab television stations, Carroll’s father, Jim, described his daughter as “an innocent woman” and appealed to her captors to spare her life, saying it would “serve your cause more than her death.”

A U.S. Embassy official said he was unaware of any contacts between a high-level hostage release team and the kidnappers. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said U.S. authorities were meeting with various figures including political leaders, particularly from the Sunni Arab community, who may have links to the kidnappers.

Carroll was abducted Jan. 7 near al-Dulaimi’s office after she went there to interview him. Her translator was killed. On Friday, al-Dulaimi promised to work for the release of all female prisoners but warned that failure to set Carroll free would “undermine and hamper my efforts.”

Heightened security measures accompanied the announcement of the election results, with thousands of police manning checkpoints and patrolling along all roads leading in and out of Baghdad and Anbar, Diyala, Najaf and Mosul provinces.

The closures were expected to continue Saturday. Only Iraqis returning from performing a Muslim pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia will be able to enter the provinces, said army Capt. Jassim al-Wahish.

U.S. and Iraqi troops also launched a major military operation in southern Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood at dawn Friday in the hunt for two local insurgent leaders believed to control several hundred militants, including non-Iraqi Arabs, said Iraqi Army Gen. Mehdi al-Gharawi.

A series of loud explosions and bursts of machine gun fire were heard in the area as the troops hunted suspected militant chiefs Sheik Fathi al-Jibouri and relative Abu Aisha al-Jibouri, al-Gharawi told The Associated Press.

Sgt. Keith Robinson, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that several military operations were under way as part of an overall offensive in southern Baghdad but declined to elaborate.

Despite the security clampdown, violence continued.

A roadside bomb exploded in central Baghdad’s Karradah district, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding three, said police Maj. Qussai Ibrahim and Lt. Bilal Ali Hamid.

Ibrahim said the target of the attack was a passing U.S. military convoy. American officials had no immediate details.

A senior Iraqi police officer and his four bodyguards were kidnapped by armed men, some wearing military uniforms, late Thursday outside a Karradah restaurant, police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun said.