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BAGHDAD - Cars and trucks returned to Iraq's roads Saturday as authorities eased tight security imposed for the parliamentary election, and the main Sunni Arab alliance said it was open to forming a governing coalition with a religious Shiite bloc.
With Thursday's voting held peacefully, Iraqi officials also reopened border crossings, except on the frontier with Syria. They said the Syrian crossings would resume in a few days, but did not say why there was a delay.
There were few violent incidents reported for a third day. Attackers killed four Iraqis, authorities said, and the U.S. command reported the death of a Marine from a nonhostile wound.
Although no official vote figures have been released, authorities estimate almost 70 percent of Iraq's 15-million registered voters cast ballots.
The big turnout - particularly among the disaffected Sunni Arab minority that boycotted the election of a temporary legislature in January - has boosted hopes that increasing political participation may undermine the insurgency.
The Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni Arab bloc led by Adnan al-Dulaimi, is expected to significantly increase the Sunni presence in the 275-member Parliament, where Sunnis won only 17 seats Jan. 30.
A day after saying he might be able to form a ruling coalition from Sunnis, secular Shiites and Kurds, Dulaimi said he also would consider working with the now-governing United Iraqi Alliance, a religious-based group whose supporters come from the country's Shiite majority.
U.S. officials view Dulaimi as a possible intermediary who could persuade insurgent groups in restive Anbar province to give up violence and join the political process. President Bush planned to make a broadcast address on Iraq tonight.
An election official in Baghdad said it could be 10 days before results of Thursday's voting are announced and urged Iraqis to be patient.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in a speech in the city of Najaf, warned against possible fraud and called for an independent committee to be formed to count the ballots, Al-Hurra television reported.
Dulaimi also noted irregularities and said his group may demand new elections if the allegations are proved.
On Saturday, Al-Qaida in Iraq denied in an Internet statement that it had intentionally curbed violence during this week's elections, saying that during the elections it carried out multiple attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad; in Baghdad and Mosul; and in Anbar and Diyala provinces.
The claim could not be immediately verified.
In violence Saturday:
Sheik Kerim Al-Asadi, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was shot to death outside his home in eastern Baghdad, police said.
Gunmen killed Maj. Gen. Mushriq Ibrahim Abdul Hamid, a former Iraqi air force officer, near his home in the capital's Sadiyah neighborhood, police and hospital officials said.
In separate attacks, a policeman was slain near his home in west Baghdad, and one officer was killed and another seriously wounded in the northern city of Kirkuk, police said.
U.S. authorities reported that a Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, died Friday from what was described as a nonhostile gunshot wound.