(updates below … scroll down)

Cartoon prompts threat from Palestinian groups:

Two armed Palestinian groups have threatened to target French, Danish or Norwegian citizens in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank following the publication of a set of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

Newspapers in Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland carried the cartoons which show the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb.

And the editor at France Soir who reprinted the cartoons in solidarity with the Danes has been fired.

The owner of a French newspaper, France Soir, has sacked one of its editors for reprinting the cartoons.

The newspaper’s French-Egyptian owner said he regretted any offence caused to the Muslim community.

Meanwhile the leader of Hizbollah blames the whole thing on the failure to kill Salman Rushdie.

The leader of Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hizbollah group said the cartoonists would have thought twice if Muslims had fulfilled a 1989 edict by late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to kill Britain’s Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses.

“Had a Muslim carried out Imam Khomeini’s fatwa against the apostate Salman Rushdie, then those lowlifers would not have dared discredit the Prophet, not in Denmark, Norway or France,” said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

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Addendum: Cartoons of the prophet Mohammed have been reprinted today in the New York Sun, a Lebanese newspaper called Shihan, and doubtless quite a few other places where this whole story is being reported on. The “militants” who would punish each and every one of these infractions are finding themselves essentially at war with the whole civilized world.

Oh—that’s right—they already were.

…

Addendum II: Drudge displays one of the offending cartoons (Mohammed wearing a bomb as a hat).

Addendum III: The editor named by the French/Egyptian owner of France Soir to replace the one he had just fired for reprinting the cartoons has now resigned.

Addendum IV: The Jordanian (or Lebanese, depending on who you believe) newspaper which printed the cartoons (Shihan) has recalled all copies after the intervention of the owner, who promises to severely punish the perpetrators (the editor had published them in order to illustrate what the controversy was about, and, while deploring them, had urged fellow Muslims to “be reasonable.” Famous last words?)

From the same source:

Al-Qaeda has also announced it intends to unleash a holy war and to carry out “a bloody attack” against Denmark in retaliation for the cartoon, according to a statement sent by the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades to the pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi on Wednesday.

From the beeb:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned that the decision by some European papers to publish the cartoons could encourage terrorists.

…

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson also criticised the European papers which re-ran the cartoons, saying they were “throwing petrol onto the flames of the original issue and the original offence that was taken”.

Mubarak and Mandelson would instead have everyone salute and obey the orders of those who threaten bloody attacks in response to cartoons, one must assume. A recipe for a wonderful future.

Addendum V: Off-topic, but I couldn’t help myself from checking out the DemocraticUnderground.com, to see if anyone there is talking about this remarkable and potentially pivotal confrontation with Islamic extremism that is unfolding before our eyes, but I didn’t see any thread on the subject. I did, however, see this: How will YOU know when it’s time to GET OUT OF THE USA? (As always with DU threads, read at your own risk.)

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