Some 1,500 people protested after Muslim weekly prayers in Baghdad against the entry of US soldiers into a Sunni mosque overnight. "Don't violate mosques," said one of the banners raised by the protesters, who were led by the prayer leaders, or imams, of the capital's three major mosques. One protester said the troops entered Abu Huthaifa Al-Yaman mosque around midnight Thursday and seized the equivalent of 90 dollars. "It was a deliberate violation of Iraq's holy places and we are here to protest against this provocation," said Ahmad Al-Azawi, who lives in the mosque's neighborhood in southeast Baghdad. "The Americans entered the mosque under the pretext of searching for weapons, but in reality, they were trying to provoke us," said Zaki Al-Rawi. The US-led coalition had on June 2 accused Iraqi militants of using mosques as arms depots and bases to carry out attacks on American soldiers. Meanwhile, a Sunni imam who last week urged Muslims to wage jihad, to recover their usurped rights and called on US forces to speed up their withdrawal from Iraq refrained on Friday from making any reference to political issues following a coalition ban on incitement to violence. "Muslims are entitled to raise the banner of jihad to restore usurped rights or repel an evil threatening them," Sheikh Muayyed Al-Aazami said in his sermon at the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad last week. **More Than 100 Iraqis Killed by US Troops*** U.S. forces killed at least 27 Iraqis who attacked a tank patrol north of Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said. The U.S. statement said he Iraqis fired anti-tank weapons at the U.S. patrol in the town of Balad. Tanks fired back, killing four Iraqis. Armored vehicles backed by helicopter gunships pursued the rest of the group, killing almost 30 . In separate incident U.S. troops have killed at least 80 people in a raid on a "terrorist" training camp in northwest Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said on Friday. To justify this attack U.S. military said they are Al-Qaeda sympathizers. The Iraqi witnesses said the victims were not terrorists or Fedai Saddam, TV Al-Jazeera reported. One U.S. soldier was wounded in the attack that was launched on Thursday and was still in progress, he said. He said a U.S. helicopter was shot down in the operation on Thursday. The Apache H-64's two-member crew were rescued unhurt as two other Apaches engaged irregular Iraqi fighters. It was the first time a U.S. helicopter had been shot down since major combat operations in the Iraq war ended. Some 4,000 troops also scoured an area around the Tigris river northeast of the tense town of Balad this week in "Operation Peninsula Strike," which the military said was the biggest operation it had launched since major war combat ended. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Protestors gather in front of the Palestine Hotel at Freedom Square in Baghdad, to demonstrate against the American Forces AFP/Timothy A. Clary)