Swedish Police Hide Threatened Cartoonist From Al Qaeda In Iraq
Lars Vilks, Infidel Refugee
STOCKHOLM, Sept. 17 — A Swedish cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog said Monday that police have taken him to a secret location and told him he cannot return home because of a death threat from insurgents in Iraq.
Lars Vilks, who was whisked away by police when he returned to Sweden from Germany on Sunday, said authorities have described the threats against him as “very serious.”
“Police guard was nonexistent before this. It’s 100 percent now,” Vilks said in a telephone interview. “I can’t live in my home.”
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent umbrella organization believed to have been created by al-Qaeda in Iraq, offered $100,000 over the weekend for Vilks’s murder. Al-Baghdadi said the bounty would be upped to $150,000 if Vilks was “slaughtered like a lamb,” and he offered $50,000 for the killing of the editor of a newspaper that reprinted the cartoon last month after Swedish art galleries refused to exhibit it.
“We are calling for the assassination of cartoonist Lars Vilks who dared insult our Prophet,” al-Baghdadi said, according to transcripts of Islamic Web sites, “and we announce a reward during this generous month of Ramadan.”
Sweden’s secret police called in extra personnel over the weekend to work on the case, said a spokesman, Jakob Larsson.
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has called for mutual respect among Muslims, Christians and nonreligious groups in an attempt to avert a wider conflict in a country that has received more than 18,000 Iraqi refugees over the past year.
“We are urging calm. We are urging thoughtfulness,” Reinfeldt told the Swedish TT news agency. “We shall reject all those who call for violence and will oppose extremists’ attempts to worsen the matter.”
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KUDO’s to Lars. Now that he is a hunted man, he should continue to produce carton’s depicting Islam for the hatred that it preaches for infidels (read as Christians, Jews, etc)
September 18th, 2007 at 5:31 amLars is a brave man, and his would be killers, and their friends,
September 18th, 2007 at 5:40 amand everybody who thinks they might be friends of the killers,
and everybody who justthinks that Lars has crossed a line,
should be thrown out of europe.
Let them have a small corner of the world. Not everywhere.
Why aren’t every newspaper and magazine in the country printing a myriad of pictures just like it. if you don’t stand up to this type of action it will only get worse. it already has!
September 18th, 2007 at 8:18 amIf every newspaper were to print those cartoons it would send a message to AQ, that the world is not intimidated by their threats. It might be necessary to bring Lars here for his own safety as we have done for other Muslim critics. I hope he continues drawing his cartoons. The world needs to give a collective middle finger to AQ & their irhabi followers.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:14 amthis is nothing like the insults artists regularly make towards christianity, the major difference is that the muslims will make good on threats and its supported by the quran. I am happy to see that some liberals in europe are taking these small minded idiots on with such courage!
September 18th, 2007 at 11:29 pmMuslims Against Sharia praise the courage of Lars Vilks, Ulf Johansson, Thorbjorn Larsson and the staff of Nerikes Allehanda and Dagens Nyheter and condemn threats issued by Abu Omar Al Baghdadi and the Islamic State of Iraq. Muslims Against Sharia will provide a payment of 100,000kr (about $15,000) for the information leading to capture or neutralization of Abu Omar Al Baghdadi.
Muslimer mot Sharia berömmer Lars Vilks, Ulf Johansson, Torbjörn Larsson och övriga anställda på Nerikes Allehanda och Dagens Nyheter för deras tapperhet och fördömer hotet från Abu Omar Al Baghdadi och Islamistiska Iraq. Muslimer mot Sharia betalar 100 000 SEK (ca 15 000$) för information som leder till gripande eller oskadligörande av Abu Omar Al Baghdadi.
Muslims Against Sharia
September 19th, 2007 at 2:01 am