Taliban offers reward for killing of cartoonist
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-09 15:30

A top Taliban commander offered a reward of 100 kilograms of gold to anyone who kills the person responsible for "blasphemous" cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.

If someone killed the cartoonist responsible for the cartoons in Denmark, the "Taliban will give 100 kilograms (244 pounds) of gold," Mullah Dadullah said in a telephone call to AIP from an unknown location, the Pakistan-based private news agency reported on Wednesday.

Dadullah also said the Taliban would give five kilograms of gold to anyone who killed a Danish, Norwegian or German soldier, AIP said.

AIP said Dadullah was operating as chief commander of the Taliban waging an anti-government insurgency in Afghanistan.

The agency quoted Dadullah as saying the Taliban's list of would-be suicide bombers had grown since the publication of the cartoons.

Eleven demonstrators have been killed since Friday in violent protests over the cartoons in Afghanistan.