U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed Iraqi leaders on Friday to make stronger efforts in reconciling the country's warring factions.

Gates, who arrived here late Friday night to meet with U.S. military officers and Iraqi political leaders, said he would deliver the same message he did when he was here in April.

"That is our troops are buying them time to pursue reconciliation, that frankly we are disappointed with the progress so far," said Gates, who flew into Baghdad on an unannounced visit Friday.

Gates said that he hoped "this most recent bombing by al-Qaeda won't further disrupt or delay the political progress."

He said he would encourage Iraqi political leaders to make progress in passing relevant laws, which Washington sees as crucial to bringing minority Sunni Arabs more firmly into the political process.

This is Gate's fourth trip to the country since taking over as U.S. defense chief in December.

And this time, Gates' visit came amid rising tension as Iraqi officials ordered a citywide security clampdown after insurgents blew up two minarets of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, on Wednesday morning,

Gunmen attacked and set fire on three Sunni mosques south of Baghdad on Thursday in apparent reprisal attacks, raising fears over escalation of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq.

Gates noted that the situation in Iraq is a mixed picture, but one that shows pockets of improvement in some neighborhoods.

He said he had full confidence in General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who is supposed to report in September on whether a surge in U.S. combat forces has succeeded in bringing down the violence.

Gates added that he believes Petraeus "has not pulled his punches at all in terms of the difficulty of the struggle in front of us, in terms of the obstacles to both reconciliation and greater security in both the Baghdad area and Iraq as a whole."

With the newly-arrived U.S. troops only expected to be fully operational by August, Gates was asked whether September was too soon to make such an appraisal.

"There is still a lot of uncertainty but I think we will have some sense of direction and trends on where we are heading," he said.

Following the footsteps of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and U.S. commander in the Middle East William Fallon, Gates becomes the third senior U.S. official to visit Baghdad this week.

Source: Xinhua