TERRORISM: AL-QAEDA VIDEO THREATENS EU NATIONS OVER CARTOONS

Rome, 12 May (AKI) - An al-Qaeda video has been posted to the Internet calling upon Muslims to attack Denmark, Norway and France for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The man on the video was identified as Libyan Mohammed Hassan, also known as Sheikh Abu Yahia al-Libi, who escaped from the US Bagram airbase in Afghanistan last July. Although newly posted on Thursday, the 35-minute video carries the date February 2006 when protests over the caricatures erupted across the Muslim world. It was unclear when the video, produced by al-Sahab, a media organisation close to Al-Qaeda, was recorded.

"Muslims avenge your prophet .... We deeply desire that the small state of Denmark, Norway and France ... are struck hard and destroyed," declared Libyan Mohammed Hassan, who escaped from US custody at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan last July.

"Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood," said Hassan, who appears in military garb, with a black turban and a rifle in hand.


Hassan, was one of four Arab terror suspects who broke out of the high-security detention facility at Bagram, the main US military base in Afghanistan.


Last month al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a video message urged Muslims to boycott products from the United States and European countries which supported Denmark over the publication of the caricatures.

One of the cartoons, originally published by a Danish daily and later reprinted by various European newspapers, showed the prophet with a bomb-shaped turban.

Muslims consider any image of the prophet to be blasphemous.