Police Shoot Man Attacking Muhammad Cartoonist

Police shot a Somali man wielding an ax and a knife last night after he broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard, the Danish artist whose cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban outraged the Muslim world. A 28-year-old man with ties to al-Qaeda was caught by police when Westergaard activated an alarm in his home in Aarhus. The intruder was shot in a knee and a hand after he wielded an ax at a police officer; he was hospitalized but his life was not in danger.

Westergaard, whose 5-year-old granddaughter was in the home on a sleepover, sought shelter in a specially made safe room when the suspect broke a window of the home, police said. Westergaard said the assailant shouted "revenge" and "blood" as he tried to enter the bathroom where the cartoonist and the child had sought shelter. Danish intelligence sources said the intruder has close relations to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab and al-Qaeda leaders in eastern Africa. He will be charged with attempted murder. (More Kurt Westergaard stories.)