Somali Man Charged With Attempted Murder of Danish Mohammad Cartoonist

A Somali man with ties to al Qaeda was charged with the attempted murder of Kurt Westergaard after he broke into the cartoonist's home with an axe and knife with the intention to murder him for depicting Mohammad in a series of cartoons that were published in 2005.

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 28-year-old Somali -- who had ties to al-Qaida -- broke into Kurt 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.

The 75-year-old artist, 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.

Officers arrived two minutes later and tried to arrest the assailant, but then shot him in the hand and knee when he threatened them with the ax, said Preben Nielsen of the Aarhus police.

Several Islamist groups issued fatwas in the aftermath of the publication and called for the death of the cartoonist and those responsible for their publication. Riots also ensued around the world with several embassies being damaged, and rioters murdered more than 50 people.

It's instructive to remember what Westergaard refuses to back down in the face of the violence. He doubled down on the jihadis in 2008 with yet another critique of the Islamists and their incessant violence against those who do not believe as they do.

Curiously, the Danish authorities aren't releasing the name of the man, who they say has ties to al Qaeda and al Sahab terror groups, and may have carried out other terror attacks in Africa.