BENEATH the same harsh desert sun, 300 miles apart, two leaders yesterday rallied their forces for a clash of armies — and of civilisations — that is now just days away.

At a makeshift parade ground in northern Kuwait, Lieutenant-General Jeff Conway told a vast sea of troops that he had supreme faith in their ability and promised that their superior weapons, greater striking power and longer reach would prevail.

At almost the same moment Sheikh Abdul-Razzaq Saadi was exhorting thousands of the faithful in Baghdad’s Mother of all Battles Mosque. “Oh God, strike the oppressors,” he cried. “Oh God, please shoot down their planes, sink their ships. Oh God, please make the infidels and aggressors drown. Oh God, make Bush and Blair drown. It is the duty of Muslims today, Iraqis and others, to threaten American interests wherever they are, to set them on fire and to sink their ships. This is jihad in the name of God.”

In Kuwait the rows of ochre tanks, heavy artillery and attack helicopters that provided the backdrop for General Conway’s call to arms bore testimony to the coalition’s vast military superiority.

The general — an American — told UK Desert Rats how 225 years ago the cry “The British are coming” was used to frighten children. Now, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their US comrades, that cry was music to American ears.

But the Iraqis evidently believe that pride, passion and trust in Allah can compensate for what they lack in military hardware. They poured to the enormous mosque for what were likely to be the last Friday prayers before the war — old men in pale grey dish-dashes, angry young men, silent women in black abayas, agitated children.

In his fiery hour-long sermon Sheikh Saadi urged even the women to fight the invaders. “Satans Bush and Blair, we will not welcome you,” he said. “We will kill you when you step inside Iraq. This will be a cemetery for British and American troops.” He, too, invoked Britain’s colonial history. “In the 1920 revolution, we thwarted the British with our sticks. Now we will kill them with knives and swords and everything that we can use.”

Definitions of victory and defeat are, of course, subjective. The mosque was built to commemorate Iraq’s “victory” in the 1991 Gulf War. The four inner minarets resemble Scud missiles sitting on launch pads, 43m (141ft) high to mark 43 days of fighting. The four outer minarets resemble Kalashnikov rifles. Its prized possession is a Koran written in President Saddam Hussein’s blood.

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