But while Islamic parties fared well as a group, their votes were scattered among various factions, and only one — a party of independents in Wasit province said to be backed by Moqtada al-Sadr — won an absolute majority. Seats will be allocated on each local council in proportion to each party's votes.

The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a formerly exiled group Shiite group, fared far better than factions of the Dawa party, a Shiite movement with deep roots in Iraq. The Supreme Council came in first in the provinces of Najaf, Karbala, Qadisiyah and Muthana. Its strongest support was in Najaf, with 37 percent of the vote, and Karbala, with 34 percent.

The al-Sadr faction, known as the Islamic Virtue Party, performed best in some of the poorest provinces, where the ministry of Sadr's father was most influential in the 1990s. It won the largest number of votes in Theqar province and polled well in Muthana, coming in second. Another group backed by Sadr won in Maysan province.

In Baghdad, candidates affiliated with the Shiite-sponsored coalition of parties will take a surprisingly strong position in the local council with 40 percent of the vote. The party of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi won 15 percent of the vote here and a faction of the al-Sadr movement took 9 percent.

Though attacks promised by opponents to the Jan. 30 elections failed to stop the voting, violence has continued around Iraq.

In an eastern neighborhood of Baghdad, gunmen in three cars pulled up to the Happiness Bakery early Friday morning, blocked traffic and opened fire at the store with automatic weapons. In a hail of bullets and window glass, 11 members of a family who owned and operated the bakery were killed, including a 10-year-old boy, according to police and witnesses.

Neighbors said the bakery was run by Shiites, and campaign ads for Shiite candidates were posted at the blue-tiled shop. Sunni insurgents have targeted Shiites in an attempt to inflame sectarian violence.

"Why, just why?" said a distraught bystander, Kathim Hamid, 54. "Someone is trying to start civil war in Iraq. Can't they give up and let us live in peace?"

A few hours later, near a Shiite mosque in Balad Ruz, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, a pickup truck loaded with vegetables exploded, killing at least 12 people.

Saghir, delivering the Friday sermon at the Baratha Mosque in Baghdad, said the attacks were designed to undermine Shiite political progress. "We know they are going to reorganize their ranks and try to hit again. But whatever they do will not deter us from our march," he said in a sermon that, at times, drew impassioned cries from the crowd. "They are killers and thugs."

At the Um al-Qura Mosque — which serves as the headquarters of an influential Sunni group, the Association of Muslim Scholars — the prayer leader, Ahmed Samarrai, called for a nationwide conference of Sunni leaders to develop a unified stand.

For decades, Iraq's Sunni minority wielded the bulk of political power, particularly the elite in Baghdad. Until Saddam's fall, Sunnis never had to organize explicitly along the sectarian or ethnic lines that have increasingly come to define Iraqi politics.

"We would like to unify our ranks, and this is our right, in order to extend brotherhood and unity, shoulder to shoulder, with all Iraq's people," Samarrai said.

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Contributing: Sahar Nageeb, Omar Fediki, Bassam Sebti, Naseer Nouri, Khalid Saffar.