Danish cartoonist escapes attack by Somali

LONDON - Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose caricature of Prophet Muhammad sparked fury in the Muslim world, escaped a murder bid when a knife-wielding Somali man broke into his house in Denmark.

The 28-year-old intruder barged into Westergaard’s house in the western city of Aarhus Friday night and tried to kill the 74-year-old cartoonist in front of his five-year-old granddaughter, BBC reported.

The startled cartoonist ran into a room with his granddaughter and raised an alarm. Police, who rushed to his house, shot the man in his leg.

BBC quoted the Danish police as saying that the Somali man was linked to the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia.

Westergaard’s cartoon, published in Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten in 2005, depicted the Prophet with a bomb in his turban, triggering an international outcry.

The ensuing wave of violence saw Danish embassies set on fire. Calls were made to boycott Danish goods.

The cartoonist went into hiding amid threats to his life but emerged last year.