BAGHDAD (AFP) — US Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Baghdad on Sunday on a surprise visit amid an explosion of violence across Iraq which officials said killed at least 35 Iraqis and 10 insurgents.
Gates, on his seventh trip to Iraq, was to meet the head of the US armed forces in the country, General David Petraeus, to discuss a possible drawdown of American troops, and top Iraqi leaders.
"I will obviously be interested in hearing General Petraeus about his evaluation, where he stands and what more work he feels he needs to do before he is ready to come back with his recommendations," he told reporters travelling with him on the plane from Germany to Iraq.
Gates, who was last in Iraq in December, is due to give his recommendations to the US Congress in April about troop numbers in Iraq, where the military currently has a force of about 160,000.
He is also to meet Iraqi leaders at a dinner Sunday to discuss progress on the political front, including the adoption of legislation such as a controversial reconciliation law which allows members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party to return to public life.
The defence secretary arrived in Iraq shortly before the one-year anniversary of a US troop surge designed to improve security in Baghdad, although the country continues to battle a deadly insurgency.
Underscoring the continued violence, at least 25 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in a marketplace in a village in central Iraq around the time of Gates's arrival.
The blast occurred in the village of Yathreb near Balad, about 75 kilometres (45 miles) north of Baghdad, a police official in Salaheddin province told AFP.
"It was a suicide car bomber. The attack took place at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) when the market was very busy," Colonel Issa Ayan said.
Ayan said people were reported missing after the explosion, which caused havoc in the market and brought down buildings. Some bodies were thought buried beneath the rubble.
Salaheddin province is one of the focuses of a major sweep against Al-Qaeda in Iraq launched by US and Iraqi forces on January 8, codenamed Operation Phantom Phoenix.
US commanders say the jihadists have regrouped in the central-northern provinces of Diyala, Salaheddin, Nineveh and Tamim after being chased out of Baghdad and surrrounding belts by a "surge" of US forces last year.
In other violence, the US military said gunmen stormed a compound of an anti-Qaeda "Awakening" group in the town of Sinjar, west of the Nineveh capital Mosul, sparking clashes that left at least 15 people dead.
Among those killed were 10 suspected Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and five Awakening group members.
Awakening groups, made up mainly of Sunni former insurgents, have been battling Al-Qaeda in Iraq with the support of the US military for more than a year and have been the target of attack, especially by Al-Qaeda.
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith on Sunday claimed seized Al-Qaeda documents revealed that Osama bin Laden's jihadist network in Iraq has been weakened by the Awakening groups, which it regards as "a grave threat" and its "most dangerous enemy."
A captured diary, Smith told reporters, "shows that Al-Qaeda regards these groups as a grave threat and the terrorists are increasingly targeting them."
A US military statement said that three civilians were killed and five injured in another attack by insurgents in Nineveh, but gave few other details.
Iraqi officials, meanwhile, said two policemen were killed and 10 wounded when mortar shells slammed into a police headquarters the central Iraq town of Balad Rooz. Seven civilians were also wounded.
In separate incidents in west Baghdad, one civilian was killed and two wounded in a drive-by shooting while two army officers, a colonel and a brigadier general, were wounded in a gunfire attack on their car, security officials said.
In a television interview Sunday, US President George W. Bush acknowledged the United States would seek a military presence in Iraq for "years" but pledged he would not establish permanent bases.
Bush brushed aside concerns expressed by critics that a Status of Forces Agreement Washington is discussing with the Baghdad government would commit future US presidents to a long-term deployment.
"We won't have permanent bases," Bush told Fox News.
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