BAGHDAD, Iraq - The new governing council - a U.S.-sanctioned first step toward democracy in postwar Iraq - voted Monday to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council. Violence against U.S. forces erupted again in the capital, with one soldier killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack.

Meanwhile, thousands of people - including Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds - attended a ceremony in honor of the possible successor to the long-deposed Iraqi throne, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, who greeted well-wishers at his palatial headquarters.

The occasion was the 45th anniversary of a bloody coup in 1958 when nationalists killed King Faisal II, Iraq's last monarch, provoking years of political unrest. The day had been celebrated under Saddam Hussein, but Monday was the first time monarchists in Baghdad were able to gather to mourn the king's assassination.

In west Baghdad, one American soldier was killed and six wounded in the attack by insurgents who fired several rocket-propelled grenades at the military convoy early Monday, said Spc. Giovanni Llorente, a military spokesman. Also Monday, the military said a marine in southern Iraq died in a non-hostile incident.

The death brought to 32 the number of American soldiers killed in hostile action since President Bush declared an end to major fighting on May 1.

The violence followed an apparent failed car-bombing Sunday night on a police station full of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police, local police said.

A white Volkswagen was destroyed and a badly mangled and headless body lay nearby, said police Sgt. Adel Shakir. He said the body was thought to have been one of two men who were attempting to get the explosive-packed car near the station.

Also Sunday, at least one Iraqi was killed and five wounded in a shooting incident involving U.S. troops in Baqouba, north of the capital. The U.S. military said Monday that American soldiers opened fire after the car turned off its headlights and tried to run a checkpoint at about 11:20 p.m.

However, the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera television network quoted witnesses as saying the car was filled with a family on its way to a hospital. It said one child and an adult were killed in the shooting, and several others were wounded.

In Cairo, the Arab League chief showed little eagerness to embrace the new U.S.-backed governing council, reflecting wider Arab wariness about America's intentions in Iraq.

If the new council had been elected, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in a statement released by the league Sunday night, "it would have gained much power and credibility."

The council, which was announced to the world on Sunday, will have real political muscle with the power to name ministers and approve the 2004 budget. But final control of Iraq still rests with L. Paul Bremer - the U.S. administrator of Iraq and a major architect of the council.

At the close of its first full day of business, the council voted to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council that would "assert and emphasize the role of the governing council as a legitimate Iraqi body during this transitional period."

The governing council - which brings together Iraq's diverse mosaic of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and ethnic Turks - also formed three committees to outline an order of business for the coming weeks and work out organizational issues, said Hoshyar Zebari, a spokesman for the council.

The council had planned to select a leader during Monday's session, but Zebari said that would be done later.

In a deeply symbolic first public action during its inaugural session Sunday, the governing council set April 9 - the day Baghdad fell to U.S. forces - as a national holiday and banned celebrations of six dates important to Saddam and his Baath Party.

The act was announced, significantly, by a prominent Shiite cleric. Shiites, long oppressed by Saddam, now dominate the 25-member council.

"The establishment of this council represents the Iraqi national will after the collapse of the dictatorial regime," said the cleric, Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum from the holy southern city of Najaf.

On the same day as the inauguration, U.S. forces launched their latest sweep in cities and towns of central Iraq, hunting for Saddam loyalists amid expectations of anti-U.S. attacks to mark a number of Baathist holidays this week.

The military on Monday said 226 people had been captured in the sweep, dubbed Operation Ivy Serpent. It said six former regime leaders were among them. None, however, appeared to be part of a list of 55 most wanted fugitives from the old regime. No Iraqi civilians or coalition troops have been killed in the operation.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Sunday that attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq may worsen this summer but he insisted that occupation forces there are making progress.

With the U.S. military still struggling on the security front, establishment of the council was a major political step, giving an Iraqi face to the U.S.-led occupation of the country. American administrators had changed plans several times in the past months, wavering over how much authority to give the new body, which fueled a feeling among many Iraqis that the Americans had come as colonizers, not liberators.

As the new members were introduced to the world at the Baghdad Convention Center, Bremer stood and applauded from the front row. But he made no comment, a move designed to lower the American profile.

Council member Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, said he does not expect Bremer to veto council decisions and believed negotiations would settle all disputes.

Still to be seen is whether the council can convince the Iraqi people that it represents them, even though they never had a chance to vote on its members. Coalition leaders say an election in Iraq is not yet practical.

Images of the inauguration were broadcast live by Western and Arab satellite television, received in about 40 percent of homes in Baghdad. Council members - some dressed in traditional Arab robes, some in Islamic cleric garb, others in business suits - sat in a semicircle of chairs on a stage before an audience of dignitaries.