The alleged attack on the Danish cartoonist who drew lampooning pictures of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) raises questions among Denmark’s Muslim community who are puzzled and disturbed by emerging details of the latest episode of the cartoons crisis. \"There are many questions in this case,\" Bilal H Assaad, chairman of the Islamic Faith Society, said in a comment on the website of Scandinavian Waqfs, Denmark\'s main Muslim body on Sunday, January 3.

The Danish authorities are accusing a Somali man of attempting to kill Kurt Westergaard, one of the Danish cartoonists who drew offensive pictures of the prophet in 2005.

According to the police, the 28-year-old asylum seeker, whose name has not been released under Danish law, was shot twice by police on Friday night as he tried to break-in Westergaard\'s home while armed with an axe and a knife.

Intelligence agencies said on Sunday that the man has links to al-Qaedawork and the al-Shabaab group in his homeland.

He had \"close ties to the Somali terror organization al-Shebaab as well as to al-Qaeda leaders in East Africa\", the Danish security and intelligence service (PET) said in a statement.

Danish newspapers also reported that he was arrested over a planned attack on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Africa last summer, according to intelligence sources.

The incident is raising eyebrows among the Muslim community who question the timing and the emerging details.

\"Why would the Danish intelligence leave such man free though they claim he has close connections to ‘Qaeda leaders in Africa,’” said Assaad.

\"And is that al-Qaeda style, a screaming man targeting a heavily-guarded house in the middle of the night with a knife?”

The Somali was carried into a court on Saturday to face two charges of attempted manslaughter, which he denied.

He was ordered held for four weeks on preliminary charges of attempting to murder the cartoonist

Unfinished Business

Danish Muslims, however, condemned the alleged attack and was keen to distance themselves from it.

\"The Danish Muslim Union strongly distances itself from the attack and any kind of extremism that leads to such acts,\" an umbrella organization for Muslims in Denmark said in a statement, reported the Observer.

But Assaad, of the Islamic Faith Society, believes that the latest episode of the cartoons controversy is not going to be the last in the Scandinavian country as long as Muslims are being wrongly treated.

\"This did not come out of nowhere,\" he said. \"The government is still unable of having a fair policy in treating the Muslim minority.

\"Even those who seek to climb the political ladder resort to assaulting Muslims in order to get fame and be recognized.”

Danish Muslims are estimated at 180,000 or around three per cent of Denmark\'s 5.4 million.

Islam is Denmark\'s second largest religion after the Lutheran Protestant Church, which is actively followed by four-fifths of the country\'s population.

When Jyllands-Posten daily commissioned and published the 12 blasphemous drawings in 2005, it triggered a storm of protests across the Muslim world and straining ties with Muslim countries, but Danish Muslims vowed to astute reaction.

In 2008, however, 17 newspapers reprinted one of the lampooning drawings, reigniting the controversy.

\"We have always affirmed that we reject violence with all its kinds,\" said Assaad.

\"But as long as some are trying hard to marginalize the Muslim community and link it to ignorance, violence and backwardness, the cartoons crisis will remain an unfinished business for years to come.”