Thousands of people carrying Korans and waving banners demonstrated outside a Baghdad mosque today demanding the US leave Iraq.
In the first Friday prayers since US tanks drove to the heart of the Iraqi capital last week, Imam Ahmed al-Kubaisi said in his sermon the US invaded Iraq to defend Israel and denied that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
His followers poured out of the mosque after prayers chanting anti-US slogans and waving banners that read "No to America. No to Secular State. Yes to Islamic State".
The US has said a former US general will lead an interim government of unspecified length in Iraq.