DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden has called for people who ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad to be killed, weighing into the furor that erupted after a Danish newspaper ran cartoons lampooning Islam's holy messenger.
"Heretics and atheists, who denigrate religion and transgress against God and His Prophet, will not stop their enmity toward Islam except by being killed," the Saudi-born militant said.
Bin Laden's remarks were part of an audio tape which Al Jazeera television aired excerpts from on Sunday. The television station later published a full transcript on its Web site.
The Doha-based satellite television channel had aired excerpts of the tape in which bin Laden accused the West of waging a "Crusader-Zionist" war against Islam, citing the isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government and the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region as examples.
Anger over the cartoons, which a Danish newspaper first published last year, outraged Muslims who consider drawings of the Prophet to be blasphemous.
The caricatures, which were reprinted in several Arab and European newspapers, sparked violent protests in which more than 50 people were killed. Consumers in Muslim countries have also boycotted Danish goods.
Denmark's government has refused to apologize for the cartoons, saying it cannot say sorry on behalf of a free and independent media and that freedom of speech is sacred.
"The insistence of the Danish government to refrain from apologizing and its refusal to punish the criminals and take action to prevent this crime from being repeated... shows that the notions of freedom of speech have no roots, especially when it comes to Muslims," bin Laden said in the tape.