Stockholm/Cairo - Stakes were raised Saturday after a reward was posted for the death of a Swedish artist and editor of a newspaper that recently printed a caricature of Islam's Prophet Mohammed depicted as a dog. The leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq, an insurgency group held responsible for several acts of violence, put a 100,000 dollars reward on the head of Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
"From this day on we call for spilling the blood of the cartoonist who dared to denigrate the prophet's position," said an audio statement carried by the Islamist al-Hesbah website on Saturday.
The 30-minute statement was attributed to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic group in the Abu Ghraib area.
"We announce in Ramadan, the month of giving, a reward of 100,000 dollars for whoever kills this criminal and infidel," said the statement, which raised the reward to 150,000 dollars if the capturer "slaughtered him like a sheep."
Vilks seemed unruffled when contacted for comment by Deutsche Presse-Agentur
