on-line alias “Jihad Jane” was arrested by the FBI on returning to the US from Ireland in November. In early February, she pleaded guilty to a series of federal charges that included a plot to kill Vilks. It appears that her meetings in Ireland with the would-be assassins, whom she met through Internet chat-rooms, were monitored and watched by the FBI and Irish police.

One of the most alarming attacks so far connected with the cartoon controversy was the suicide-bombing in Stockholm on December 11 by Taimour Abdulwahab, an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen. (Fortunately the attack, which could have been devastating, was frustrated when his explosives went off prematurely, killing only himself.) In an e-mail sent to the Swedish News Agency shortly before his attempted atrocity, Abdulwahab referred explicitly toVilks’s pictures, as well as to the presence of Swedish troops in Afghanistan.

The Stratfor report reveals the risks to which named artists who have dared to lampoon Muhammad have exposed themselves, raising difficult questions for editors torn between the fear of Muslim reprisals, and accusations of pandering to extremist prejudices. In November 2009, Yale University Press published The Cartoons that Shook the World, the definitive account of the controversy by Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born scholar of contemporary Islam who teaches at Brandeis University. Shortly before the book’s appearance the Press decided to remove all the images of Muhammad, including not only the cartoons, but such well-known historical images as an engraving from Gustav Doré’s version of Dante’s Divine Comedy depicting the punishment of Muhammad in the Eighth Circle