Denmark: Somali Charged in Mohammed Cartoonist Attack

This is an update on this story:

A Somali man was charged Saturday with two counts of attempted murder for an attack on a Danish artist whose 2005 cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad ignited riots and outrage across the Muslim world, authorities said.

The artist – 74-year-old Kurt Westergaard – was moved to an undisclosed location for his own protection.

The 28-year-old Somali man with ties to al Qaeda broke into Westergaard’s home in Aarhus on Friday night armed with an ax and a knife, said Jakob Scharf, head of Denmark’s PET intelligence agency.

Westergaard, who has been the target of several death threats since depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, pressed an alarm and fled with his 5-year-old granddaughter to a specially-made safe room. He had been under round-the-clock protection by Danish security agents.

via Somali Charged in Danish Cartoonist Attack – CBS News.

This proves that, even if we see these conflicts (Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mauritania…) as very far away, they can come very near here…

As Velvethammer asks: How fragile is their faith? and adds Westergaard’s motive to draw the cartoon:

My cartoon was construed as an attempt to hurt the feelings of every Muslim in the world. That was never my intention. My picture was an attempt to expose those fanatics who have justified a great number of bombings, murders and other atrocities with reference to the sayings of their prophet. If many Muslims thought that their religion did not condone such acts, they might have stood up and declared that the men of violence had misrepresented the true meaning of Islam. Very few of them did so.

Not a very good prospect, isn’t it?

As Michelle Malkin says: “It never ends“.

Venezuela: Chávez blames West for Iranian riots

Well, this is hardly surprising, specially after Ahmadinejad’s interview in Channel 4:

“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically rejects the attempts at destabilization promoted by the U.S. government against the people and government of Iran,” Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The Bolivarian government is surprised that a group of governments, led by the U.S. empire, are echoing a campaign to divide and spread violence among Iranians, in contravention of elemental norms of peace, non-interference and respect for sovereignty,” it added.

So these two guys are meddling wherever they want to, but blame others for the riots they have in their territories. Brave logic…

Meanwhile, Moussavi, a man of the regime, just in case somewhat was doubting about US/Western influence on him, declares his willingness to be a martyr.

Afghanistan: Taliban militants behead 6 ex-colleagues

The beheaded were opposed to the war:

A group of armed militants have raided a house in southern Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, beheading six former militants and wounding another.The provincial police chief Juma Gul Humat said Thursday, “A group of extremist Taliban rebels attacked a house Wednesday night in the provincial capital of Trinkot and beheaded six of their former friends who were moderate and opposing the war.”

via Taliban militants behead 6 ex-colleagues in S. Afghanistan _English_Xinhua.

Recently, they have beheaded an anti-Taliban leader and killed at least 89 people at a volleyball playground, because in that village they were organising an anti-Taliban militia.

US: Christmas Day Bomber, aka “PantyBomber” Invited ‘Jihad’ Cleric to Address British Students

This is an update on this story:

The Christmas Day airline bomber invited a radical cleric who has advocated dying while ‘fighting jihad’ to address British students.While president of the Islamic Society at University College London, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab helped arrange for Abdur Raheem Green to speak.

The cleric, who converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism, has written that conflict between Islam and the West is ‘ordered in the Koran’, and that Muslims and Westerners ‘ cannot live peaceably together’.

He has also claimed: ‘Dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah’s good pleasure’.

In 2005, shortly before Abdulmutallab arranged for him to address UCL, Green was barred from entering Australia after opposition leader Kim Beazley accused him of ‘spreading hate’.

via Women Against Shariah: Christmas Day Bomber Invited ‘Jihad’ Cleric to Address British Students.

Wow, he was so friendly and peaceful… soooo niiiiiceeeee. Yeah, we see that…

Pakistan: Suicide Attack on Volleyball Playground

Taliban militants underscored their determination on Friday to prevent Pakistani citizens from forming armed militias to keep them at bay, as a suicide bomber rammed a truck loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives into families and children crowded on a playground in the northwest.

…Local authorities said they had little doubt that the village, Shah Hassan Khel, was chosen because residents were forming a pro-government militia. The village sits at the edge of the tribal area of South Waziristan, where the military opened an offensive to break up Taliban strongholds in October.

The bombing killed as many as 75 people and wounded scores more, making it one of the deadliest in a string of suicide attacks that have killed more than 500 Pakistanis since October. The blast was so powerful that it left a number of victims buried under rubble and the authorities uncertain exactly how many had died.

The strike was all the more devastating, as the bomber did not choose the most obvious target: A meeting under way of local leaders of the new militia. Instead, he drove his double-cabin pickup truck into the middle of a nearby playing field where teams were playing volleyball. The explosion collapsed homes surrounding the field.

via Heavy Toll at Sports Event in Pakistan After Bomb Blast – NYTimes.com.

The death toll now is of 89 people killed. But the final toll could be even higher.

Taliban have also recently beheaded an anti-Taliban leader also in Pakistan.

Denmark: Attack on Muhammad cartoonist

Somali man wielding an ax and a knife was shot by police as he attempted to kill an artist who drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage in the Muslim world, the head of Denmark’s intelligence agency said Saturday.

…The attack on the artist, whose rendering was among 12 that led to the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in predominantly Muslim countries in 2006, was “terror related,” Scharf said.

Westergaard, whose 5-year-old granddaughter was in the home on a sleepover, sought shelter in a specially made safe room when the suspect broke a window of the home, said Preben Nielsen of the Aarhus police.

via Police shoot man attacking Muhammad cartoonist | International News | Jerusalem Post.

I have the same doubt as this blogger: Was this man a “warrior of the Religion of Peace or a lone nut?”, adding that:

According to the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, the assassin has “close ties to the Somali terror organization al-Shabaab as well as to al-Qaeda leaders in East Africa….” Fancy that.

Before this attack, Mr. Westergaard also had to abandon his hotel because its directors were fearing a terrorist attack.