IRAQI politicians must include Sunni representatives in a broad-based government to be formed as soon as possible, the two top American officials in Iraq urged this weekend.

General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, said the politicians must “take the reins and get on with governing” after the votes from last Thursday’s general election are counted. He predicted that US troop withdrawals to pre-election levels would begin next month.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, said: “The newly elected leaders should come together quickly and build bridges for national unity.”

The Americans are determined that election goodwill should not be squandered by wrangling over the formation of the government, although they expect the negotiations to take weeks, if not months.

“The people, particularly the Sunni folks that I talk to, want a government that is broadly representative of all the ethnic and sectarian groups of Iraq,” Casey said.

About 12,000 US troops are likely to be withdrawn by the end of January, bringing the total down to 138,000. “I’ll make recommendations in the coming weeks about whether it’s prudent to go below that,” Casey added.

Some insurgent leaders vowed to continue their attacks on coalition forces but said that they had voted. Their ballots were cast through sympathisers in polling stations so they would not be detected by security forces, one commander claimed.

“We filled in the ballot papers and then our friends working in polling stations passed by and placed them in ballot boxes,” he said.

Another insurgent leader said voting marked the start of a twin-track political and military struggle against the largely Shi’ite dominated government and US forces.

“We will watch the performance of the Sunni candidates we voted for,” he said. “They know their mission. It is to get a timetable for withdrawal of the coalition forces.”

Sunnis are expected to gain one fifth of the directly elected seats in the 275-member council, in line with their share of Iraq’s population.

For many Sunnis, voting was a political means of supporting the insurgents and resisting America. They also hope to curb the constitutional powers of the Kurds in the north and Shi’ites in the south to break away from the centre.

Casey said the insurgency would not go away but “we should expect it to be gradually weakened and reduced as more Iraqis adopt the political process and the causes of the insurgency are addressed by the Iraqi government and the coalition”.

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