Credible threats against the Danish cartoonists

By Olivier Guitta

If you thought that the Cartoon Jihad was over, think again.

Indeed, several European secret services are on the lookout for special Islamist commandos allegedly trying to kill the 12 Danish cartoonists involved in the Jyllands Posten Muhammad cartoons. Most probably, a European sleeper cell could be activated for that mission. Nonetheless, an entrance of dangerous Pakistani elements thru Turkey is envisioned.

In fact, a couple of Al Qaeda messages are warning of targeting the cartoonists along with some European countries. The first one is the April 23 Bin Laden's call in a video to boycott products from the US and European countries which supported Denmark over the publication of the cartoons . Bin Laden had also severely critisized France for pts supposedly harsh treatments of Muslims, referring most probably to the anti-hijab law passed in 2004. Then the Islamist website Ansar Al Sunna published the exhaustive list of newspapers which published the cartoons and called for vengeance against them; adding that they deserve the same fate as Theo Van Gogh, who was savegely murdered by an Islamist in November 2004.

Then on May 2, Hamid Mir, the editor in chief of the Pakistani daily Ausaf, who met Bin Laden a couple of times, reported that credible sources told him that a team of 9 Afghans and 3 Pakistanis were on their way to murder the Danish cartoonists.

In a May 11 35-minute video, Libyan Mohammed Hassan, who escaped from US custody at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan last July stated: "Muslims avenge your Prophet .... We deeply desire that the small state of Denmark, Norway and France ... are struck hard and destroyed," said "Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood".

All this is happening while a Pakistani student who tried to kill the editor in chief of the German daily Die Welt for publishing the cartoons, was found dead in his German cell on May 3. The cause of death was suicide but the Pakistani press and opinion think differently and anger is brewing.

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