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By SINAN SALAHEDDIN and SAMEER N. YACOUB Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved closer to winning a third term Monday as his Shiite-dominated political bloc emerged firmly in first place in the country's first parliamentary elections since the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011. The challenge now for al-Maliki is to build a ruling coalition as violence rages and instability grows.

Rival Shiite blocs were the next two top vote-getters, with Sunni blocs trailing as the country grows increasingly polarized along sectarian and ethnic lines.

The showing increased the likelihood that Iraq's next government could rely on an even narrower Shiite base than the current one, which Sunnis see as biased against their sect and Kurds deem as hostile to their efforts to carve out greater autonomy in the north.

Al-Maliki's State of Law bloc was never expected to secure a majority of 165 seats in the 328-member parliament. He will still need to approach other parties to piece together a broader majority coalition to get the first crack at forming a government as violence rages and instability grows.

Still, the 92 seats his bloc walked away with increase the 63-year-old premier's chances of holding onto the post he first ascended to in 2006 from relative obscurity.

The parliamentary election was the third since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that removed dictator Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime and brought the long-oppressed Shiite majority to power. It came at a perilous moment for Iraq, with the country sinking back into a brutal cycle of bloodshed that claimed more than 8,800 lives last year alone.

The resurgence of sectarian violence, which nearly tore Iraq apart in 2006 and 2007, is being fueled both by deep-seated divisions within Iraq and the 3-year-old civil war in neighboring Syria.

Iraq's Sunni minority feels increasingly marginalized by al-Maliki's government since he cracked down on a protest movement demanding reforms last year.

Islamic militants, meanwhile, have seized control of the city of Fallujah and other pockets of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province west of Baghdad, and carry out frequent and carefully orchestrated mass-casualty attacks in the capital.

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Iraq: PM's group is biggest election winner - NBC40.net