Qaeda calls for killing of Swedish cartoonist
Offers bounty of $100,000; threatens firms
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The head of an Al Qaeda-led group in Iraq has offered a $100,000 bounty for someone to kill a Swedish cartoonist for his drawing of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, and has threatened to attack major Swedish companies.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, also offered $50,000 to anyone who kills Ulf Johansson, the editor of the newspaper that published the drawing by Lars Vilks.
Sweden's Nerikes Allehanda daily newspaper published the drawing, part of a series that art galleries in Sweden had declined to display, last month. The cartoon showed the Prophet Mohammed with a dog's body.
The controversy follows major protests by Muslims around the world last year against the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons that Muslims felt insulted the Prophet Mohammed.
"From now on we announce the call to shed the blood of the Lars who dared to insult our Prophet . . . and during this munificent month we announce an award worth $100,000 to the person who kills this infidel criminal," Baghdadi said in the 31-minute audiotape posted on an Islamist website yesterday.
"The award will be increased to $150,000 if he were to be slaughtered like a lamb.
"We know how to force them to withdraw and apologize, and if they don't, they can wait for our strikes on their economy and giant companies such as
Ulf Johansson, editor in chief of Nerikes Allehanda, said he had contacted police about the threat, which he said was more explicit than others he had received.
Vilks said he did not take the threat very seriously, though he was in touch with the police. "These people represent a very small branch of our Muslims. They work with noisy threats," he said by telephone. Vilks defended the right to freedom of expression.
"It is fundamental for Western thinking to be able to express one's artistry without making exceptions for holiness," he said. "I had no murky motives, no racist motives, and so on. It was initially a very modest local exhibition and the situation has changed little by little."
