Plotters Against Lars Vilks are Named by Irish Police

*** UPDATE ***
From Dymphna: According to Mark Humphrys’ blog, they have named the seven conspirators in Ireland who had hatched some evil plans against Lars Vilks. They are a real United Nations, all by themselves:

• Sharif Damache (Algerian) and his wife Jamie Ramirez (American)
  
• Ghamrassan Moulay-Slimane (Algerian) and his wife Iles Moulay-Slimane (Algerian)
  
• Abd Al-Salam Mansur Al Jahani (Libyan) and his wife Nadah Sameh (Palestinian)
  
• Danijel Orsos (Croatian)

Either the Croatian isn’t married or his wife didn’t go along with the plot.

See Mark’s blog for more information. He says the news reports are not online as yet.


The arrest of seven conspirators in Ireland has thrust Lars Vilks and his Modoggies back into the spotlight. The death threats from Al Qaeda have made him more of a celebrity he has ever been before. When he drew his first Rondellhund back in 2007, there was hardly a ripple in the news. Even after his Modoggie made it into a Swedish newspaper, the uproar and demonstrations did not create a sensation to match the current one.

Our traffic has nearly doubled in the last twenty-four hours, all of it due to Google image searches for “Lars Vilks”. The point of entry for these curious folks is almost always this post, which is a fitting introduction to Lars Vilks, Ladonia, and the Roundabout Dogs.


Our Danish correspondent TB writes to say that a Modoggie has actually appeared on Swedish state television. The photo above is taken from the SVT website — I couldn’t find a video clip.

TB says that the Modoggie has been widely reprinted in Swedish newspapers as well. Now the trouble will really begin: time to lock down Swedish embassies in Islamabad and Amman!

And we can also expect an imminent boycott of surströmming throughout the Muslim world.

Just for the record: the image at right, which was sent in by our alert Swedish correspondent Carpenter on the day it was published, is a scan of the first Modoggie ever published in a Swedish newspaper. It appeared in Dagens Nyheter on August 22, 2007, a month after the earliest Modoggies were removed from an art exhibition entitled “The Dog in Art” at Tällberg near Karlstad — thereby protecting the Swedish public from racism and Islamophobia.

Among today’s numerous news reports is an interview with Lars Vilks, and an English-language version has been published in The Local. Mr. Vilks says he’s keeping his trusty axe close at hand:
- - - - - - - - -

Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks said he was undaunted by revelations of a plot on his life after seven people were arrested in Ireland on Tuesday.

“I’m not shaking with fear, exactly,” Lars Vilks told Swedish news agency TT.

“I have prepared in different ways and I have an axe here in case someone should manage to get in through the window,” added Vilks, who since the publication of his drawing of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a dog three years ago has had a $100,000 bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group.

For previous posts on Lars Vilks and the Roundabout Dogs, see the Modoggie Archives.