Bin Laden warns Europe over Mohammed cartoons

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned Europe Wednesday of a "reckoning" for publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, US monitoring groups said.

In the message, addressed to the "intelligent ones" in the European Union, bin Laden said that publishing the "insulting drawings" was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.

And the "reckoning for it will be more severe," he said, according to a transcript of the message provided by the Virginia-based IntelCenter.

Referring to a series of cartoons published in Danish newspapers, the Al-Qaeda leader also warned: "if there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions."...