BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt at a crowded gas station today — one of five attacks that rocked Baghdad in quick succession, killing at least 41 people and wounding scores, police said.

The surge of violence, including three car bombs, unsettled an Iraqi capital already shaken by fears the country teeters on the brink of sectarian civil war. Iraqis have suffered through days of reprisal killings and attacks on Sunni mosques since bombers blew apart the gold dome of a Shiite Muslim shrine north of Baghdad on Wednesday.

Fears were complicated by the continuing struggle among Iraqi politicians to form a new government. National security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie traveled to the Shiite holy city of Najaf today to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the Shiite community's most revered leader.

Al-Rubaie emerged to tell reporters "the way to forming the government is difficult and planted with political bombs. We ask the Iraqi people to be patient, and we expect forming the government will take a few months."

He added: "The (United Iraqi) Alliance has chosen (Prime Minister Ibrahim) al-Jaafari and will not give up this choice. We expect that our partners in this country will respect this choice ... taking into consideration the election results."

That balloting gave the Shiite bloc a majority of parliamentary seats but not enough to rule alone.

Al-Jaafari, now serving as interim prime minister, has been criticized by opponents for weak leadership that has allowed militias to carry out reprisals on Sunnis and to infiltrate the police. Al-Jaafari's links to Muqtada al-Sadr, who helped secure him the nomination for another term, has alarmed some Shiites and others who fear the rise of the radical young cleric.

There was more sectarian violence in the wake of Wednesday's blast at the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra. North of Baghdad, a blast badly damaged a Sunni mosque where the father of Saddam Hussein was buried in the family's ancestral hometown, Tikrit.

The deposed leader's trial resumed in Baghdad with his defense team ending their monthlong boycott and prosecutors presenting a document they said was signed by the former leader approving the executions of more than 140 Shiites in southern Iraq after an assassination attempt in the 1980s.

The U.S. military reported a U.S. soldier was killed by small-arms fire west of Baghdad on Monday. At least 2,292 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count.