With a population of seven million, Baghdad has been the scene of daily carnage and kidnappings.

Restoring some security in Baghdad would be a symbolic victory for Maliki, a tough-talking Shi'ite who last week overcame fierce wrangling among his Shi'ite and Sunni coalition partners to fill the key Interior and Defense ministries.

Despite growing domestic unease, Bush has resisted setting a public timetable for the withdrawal of 130,000 American troops, making clear this will depend on the capability of U.S.-trained Iraqi forces to take over security.

Maliki told Bush during his second visit to Iraq since the 2003 war that the Iraqi government was determined to defeat the insurgents so U.S. and other forces could withdraw.

Reuters reporters saw additional army checkpoints backed by armored vehicles in Baghdad's western Mansour district and an Iraqi tank in religiously mixed Amiriya, which has seen frequent clashes between Sunni Arab insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces.

American forces were not in sight.

There was little evidence of additional troops in the dangerous, mostly Sunni area of Dora, where the government said it would also focus its security efforts.

As Bush talked to Iraqi leaders in the heavily fortified Green Zone on Tuesday, a Web statement said al Qaeda's new leader in Iraq had vowed to avenge the killing of Zarqawi.

"The day of vengeance is near and your strong towers in the Green Zone will not protect you," said the statement, posted on an Internet site often used by Islamist militants and signed by the new leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

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