I guess the Late Show has a much bigger audience than we expected…
A website frequently used by Al Qaeda has posted an assassination threat against the one and only David Letterman.
According to the SITE Intelligence Group, a private company that tracks extremist websites, a poster calling himself Umar al-Basrawi called on Muslims to kill the CBS late-night host after taking offense at a joke made on the program:
“Is there not amongst you a Sayyid Nosair al-Masri (may Allah release him) to cut the tongue of this lowly Jew and shut it forever. Just as Sayyid (may Allah release him) did with the Jew Kahane.”
SITE analyst Adam Raisman tells EW the threat was made on Shumukh-al-Islam, a site where messages from Al Qaeda frequently first appear online in the United States.
“It’s a clearing house for Al Qaeda material, it gets the most Al Qaeda supporters,”
Raisman also said that the threat should cause a bit more worry than the warning against “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone:
“This was a more explicit threat…It was direct and to the point.”
Letterman, despite not being Jewish, apparently recently mocked the death of accused terrorist leader Ilyas Kashmiri, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan in June by putting a hand to his neck and demonstrated the “way of slaughter.”
“He showed his evil nature and deep hatred for Islam and Muslims, and said that Ilyas Kashmiri was killed and he joined bin Laden…We ask Allah to paralyze his tongue and grant the sincere monotheists his neck.”
I really feel like there’d be more important people to go after than a late night talk show comedian…but that’s just me…