Three packages of TNT explosives, a 60 mm mortar tube, eight improvised grenades, bomb-making equipment, two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 11 assault rifles and two bags of gunpowder were among the weapons recovered in the raid, he told reporters, showing them a slide presentation.

"Over the last several months, the First Armoured Division in Baghdad has received numerous reports from local Iraqis that the Al-Tubul mosque had been used for criminal and terrorist activities," he said.

"The Al-Tubul mosque was believed to have been a hub of anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi activities, with various cells using the mosque as a meeting location and weapons cache," Kimmitt said.

He was referring to the Um al-Tubul mosque, renamed Ibn Taimiya, where a leading Sunni fundamentalist cleric was detained.

"Several detainees are suspected of being foreign nationals. Confirmation of their nationalities and any possible connection to terrorist organisations has not yet been established," he said.

The raid was conducted with Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and police, Kimmitt said, stressing that his troops conducted the operation with respect for the house of worship.

"Despite the clear use of this mosque for criminal, terrorist and anti- coalition activities, the greatest care was taken by coalition forces to uphold the sanctity of the mosque and use the minimal amount of force to conduct the operation," he said.

Imam Mahdi Ahmed Saleh al-Sumaydaei was detained along with more than a dozen worshippers and staff of the mosque in the Yarmuk district of the capital, witnesses said on Thursday.

One witness said US tanks and armoured personnel carriers forced their way through the front gate of the mosque, while helicopters flew overhead during the search.

Other worshippers said the raid had taken place because Sumaydaei was wrongly suspected of fuelling insurgency in Iraq linked to tensions between Shiite Muslims and minority Sunnis, from whose ranks former president Saddam Hussein hails.

On Friday, 500 people held a vigil inside the mosque after prayers and shouted: "Bush, Bush, you are the devil" and "We are the soldiers of Allah."

The raid came to the backdrop of growing unease among Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which has long held the reins of power in the country but feels marginalized under the emerging US-sponsored political order.

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