Muqtada al-Sadr remains defiant, and is canny enough to use Western buzzwords combined with traditional Arab blood imagery.

“You Americans, do not fall into a quagmire and storm Najaf. Rivers of your blood will flow,” Sheikh Nasser al-Saedi told tens of thousands of Sadr supporters in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, named after the cleric’s revered father and uncle.

The mood in Sadr City, from where Moqtada — like his late father — drew his main support, was charged with defiance. Chants such as “Yes, yes, Moqtada” thundered from the crowd.

Saedi said Sadr would triumph against an overwhelming enemy force, even if he died.

“We killed the American dream. You will not take over this country. You do not understand what martyrdom means. Look at our imams, who died for principle and belief,” Saedi added. He was referring to Sadr’s uncle, Imam Mohammad Baqer, one of Islam’s foremost thinkers, and father Sayyed Mohammad Sadeq, who courted impoverished Shi’ites marginalized politically under former President Saddam Hussein.

The two men are widely believed to have been killed by Saddam’s agents.

Moqtada al-Sadr was himself quoted on Friday by the Lebanese newspaper as-Safir as saying that if he was killed or detained, Iraqis would respond with unimaginable “force and severity.”