Baghdad, Iraq ? Shiite and Sunni Arabs celebrated the Islamic feast of sacrifice Tuesday with calls for an end to the bloodshed that has racked Iraq since last month’s elections. Sunni Arabs tempered their appeals with renewed calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

In a day with no violence reported, Iraqis celebrated the opening of the four-day Eid al-Adha celebration with visits to relatives, food and sweets. Lambs were slaughtered and food was distributed to the poor.

“This Eid is a happy day for all Muslims, especially Iraqis. But it comes after painful events that happened in Karbala and Ramadi,” said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite.

He referred to the killings of more than 120 people in suicide bombings last week in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and at a police recruiting center in Ramadi. On Monday, suicide bombers infiltrated the heavily fortified Interior Ministry compound in Baghdad and killed 29 Iraqis – an attack claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq, a group with an avowed aim of starting a sectarian war.

Violence has increased since the Dec. 15 elections, with at least 498 Iraqis and 54 U.S. forces killed.

Al-Jaafari’s governing United Iraqi Alliance emerged with a large lead in the elections, far ahead of a Kurdish coalition and Sunni Arab groups but without the majority it will need in the 275-member parliament to avoid a coalition.

With final results expected next week, the Shiites, Kurds and some Sunni Arab groups have been talking about forming a broad-based coalition government.

Iraq’s leading Shiite politician, United Iraqi Alliance leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, urged Sunni Arabs to stop complaining and accept the results.

“We call upon everybody to make the general interest of Iraq their top priority, away from sectarian or private interests. … National unity can be achieved when everybody recognizes the facts (and) accepts their outcome. Any violation of this undoubtedly will lead to the continuation of chaos and drag the country to more disasters.”

A senior Sunni Arab politician giving a holiday sermon Tuesday denounced the suicide bomb attack in Karbala and said “Iraqis would live as brothers” if the occupier – the U.S.-led coalition – left Iraq.

Harith al-Ubaidi, of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front headed by Adnan al-Dulaimi, said in a sermon that Sunnis were “hand in hand” with Shiites against the attack outside a Karbala shrine.

“We also demand that the occupier get out, because he is the reason behind every crime,” al-Ubaidi said at the Umm al-Qura mosque, Baghdad headquarters of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, which is believed to have ties to insurgent groups.