The purported head of al-Qaeda in Iraq has offered a reward for the murder of a Swedish cartoonist over his drawing depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The $100,000 (£49,310) reward would be raised by 50% if Lars Vilks was " slaughtered like a lamb" said the audio message aired on the internet.

The speaker, said to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, threatened a new offensive during the holy month of Ramadan.

Last month' s cartoon showed Prophet Muhammad' s head on a dog' s body.

Several Muslim countries protested.

It is fundamental for Western thinking to be able to express one' s artistry without making exceptions for holiness.

Last year there were riots over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, first published in September 2005 by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Muslims regard any visual representation of the Prophet as blasphemous. Many Muslims also regard the dog as an impure animal.

The latest cartoon was published by the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper on 18 August.

Last week, Sweden' s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt met ambassadors from 22 Muslim countries in an effort to defuse the row.

But Saturday' s taped message said the militants were announcing a " call to shed the blood of the Lars who dared to insult our Prophet" .

Muslim protesters outside Nerikes Allehanda office in Orebro, 31 Aug 07
Last month some 200 Muslim protesters demanded an apology

" During this generous month we announce an award worth $100,000 to the person who kills this infidel criminal," the speaker said.

He also announced a $50,000 reward for the killing of the editor of the newspaper.

And he said the Swedish government ought to apologise - otherwise al-Qaeda in Iraq would target " their economy and giant companies such as Ericsson, Volvo, Ikea, Scania" .

The cartoon' s creator, Lars Vilks, told Reuters news agency he was not worried by a threat from people representing " a very small branch of our Muslims" .

But he could not disregard it, either, and was in contact with the police.

" It is fundamental for Western thinking to be able to express one' s artistry without making exceptions for holiness," he said.

The speaker in the 30-minute tape also said he was " honoured to announce at the beginning of Ramadan an offensive in the name of... the martyr of the Islamic nation Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" who was killed in a US air strike last year.

And days after saying they had killed a well-known Sunni cleric opposed to them, the speaker accused the main Sunni party, the Islamic Party in Iraq of co-operating with US-led forces.

He also vowed to keep targeting members of the minority Yazidi community over their leaders' refusal to allow Yazidis to convert to Islam.

Meanwhile, in northern Iraq, a Sunni Arab tribal leader told the BBC that local groups had created a new alliance to fight al-Qaeda.

Fawwaz al-Jarba, who heads the Shammar tribe in the Mosul area, said local Sunni Arab tribes had joined Kurdish, Christian and Yazidi groups in a new front.

He said the new alliance would not work directly with the United States military, but only through the Iraqi government.

In July, the US announced that a top al-Qaeda militant arrested in Iraq had told interrogators that Iraq' s supposed al-Qaeda kingpin, Omar al-Baghdadi, was only a front.

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Yay for terrorism?

I won' t do it for under a million.

It sucks when fanatics get pissed off by trifles.
On the other hand, the picture was so bad he deserves to die for calling himself an artist. [:' (]
The picture of Mohammad portraid him as a kind of statue (which looks like dogs) some people place in roundabouts, .

The reward seems atypical of al-Queda. Don' t they usually just blow people up and explain later? Either that, or they simply pronouce him as an enemy of
Islam and let the temptation of martydom do the rest.

They' re offering money. I' m guessing that means they aren' t very confident in their influence in Sweden.

" It is fundamental for Western thinking to be able to express one' s artistry without making exceptions for holiness," he said.

Hmmm. True I guess. But there is a resposibility that goes along with that freedom of expression. If the cartoonist gets killed, sorry to say, he asked for it. I guess he feels it' s worth the risk.

Hey, if you can' t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Hopefully those assholes are having a good laugh every time I have to take off my shoes and belt at the airport.

Sweden should print more Comics. Only more offensive.

They fail to understand democracy. LOL, lets go blow up Ikea because some dude with no relation to it scribbled on a piece of paper!

ORIGINAL: nekkid_monkey
But there is a resposibility that goes along with that freedom of expression.

You killed Manhunt 2! You B*st*rd!

ORIGINAL: Iad umboros

ORIGINAL: nekkid_monkey
But there is a resposibility that goes along with that freedom of expression.

You killed Manhunt 2! You B*st*rd!

The makers of the game are allowed to make any game they want. If they make it so violent that the stores won' t sell it, that' s their problem. That' s the responsibility part.
You can express yourself however you please, but the public doesn' t owe you support.
You express, others respond. Simple.
Nobody censored the game for them. They censored the game themselves to avoid the NC-17 rating. There' s a difference.


Back to the cartoonist. Let' s say he gets killed and al-Queda takes responsibility. Of course Sweden has to respond, because he' s a citizen and it' s their responsibilty to protect their citizens.
But he' s still dead, and he asked for it.

Not that I' m in any way supporting his death, but if he does die it' s going to be intriguing to see Sweden' s reaction to what accounts to a paid hit from Al Qaeda. The way I see it, they have a few options, they can run into the first country with brown people, funny noses & funnier accents (god forbid they find their way to Italy on the way down) a-la the United States. They can sit back & say " Everything is fine, the situation is f***ed as normal" like the UK, or uh... they could do something intelligent, but for the life of me, I can' t think of any decent national paralels lately.

They' re nuts over there(in the middle eastern).

Just send a nuke over there and get it done.

i' m ashamed of al quaeda, those people need to be dead and cut to pieces for polluting the image of islam, ignorant shit i hate them soo much, do you guys know that in morocco just like a month ago, one ignorant crap has blown himself up in front of a car full of tourists ?

The guy didn' t die but got only his hand chopped off and he let the police know about four other of his friends that were willing to blwo themself up... No we moroccan we muslim don' t undrstand a goddam thig about these people, bceause the islam we know is far from this, one guy even before him blew himself up and carried with him an officier and another victim. so where is islam, killing his own brother? there might a misunderstanding about killing people from other religions (which is totaly wrong in islam) but to kill a muslim is plain straight crazy out of hell. So how the hell these people think??

let me tell you that people here thought that those moroccans who blew up themselves in morocco (casablanca, meknes...) were drugs addict, punks that got brainwashed somehow... but the last one who got his hand blown off is an engineer ?!!! he' s married, he has a job so .... WTF i don' t understand anything ... all i know is that this is insane and far from islam and i swear to god if i were someone with authority and got my hands on one of those punks, i' ll cut them to pieces before killing them and send them to hell. right where they belong.

Jews, Muslims, Christians.

Kill ' em all.

The thing is,I have no problem with people beliving anything,but they have to understand that they are to others " historical figures" and need to fucking calm down.

You can belive in what religion you want for me,but if you gonna threaten to kill me because I just name something then you' re retarded.

Muhammed a dog?

Who can get angry by this,he wasnt a dog,this same guy who made the image claimed Jesus were a pedohphile what evidence does he have?

none,so his opinion means just as much as some nutcase selling pencils out in the streets.

I just ignore retards like that,

Hey, pencils are pretty useful!

The gov would probably say what they always say, that it' s a minority of muslims that are terrorists and that Sweden is a free country and will not fall to fear.
We also have to many immigrants from the middle-east so being unpopular among them will make the gov lose quite a lot of potential votes.

If you guys think it' s safe for me to post it I can post the picture that pissed the muslims off. Are you willing to stand for your freedom of speech? Or will you submit to your fears?

I have to admit that he is very provocative though. He' s even made more pics (which I can post) where he portaits the profet as a soccer goalie, a swedish man disguised as the profet, as someone demontrating for animal rights, in all pics he' s a dog. And then he did jesus as an elephant... LOL.

So, wanna see the pics or what? Or does Adam find some kind of security threat against Kikizo in posting those pics?

I' d just link to them, ...with a warning.

As for Jesus being a pedo, ...it explains Catholic kiddy fiddling.

WARNING! LINKS BELOW SHOW VERY SENSITIVE MATERIAL!
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

Original picture portrays Muhammed the profet as a statue of a dog in the center of a roundabout.

Pictures he has made since the discussions started:

Animal rights Muhammed dog

Man pretending to be Muhammed dog

Muhammed as a supporter of the Swedish soccer team AIK

Jesus as an elephant

These are considered cartoons in Sweden? Damn your s*** is weak, Swedes!!!