Remember the brouhaha over the Muhammad cartoons published in Denmark? The flag burning, embassy burnings, protest deaths? And the subsequent debate about the importance of defending free speech and a free press, even if material offends some?

Well, the violent reaction to the cartoons — first published in 2006 and re-published in 2008 — hasn’t ended. The cartoonist who drew one in the series showing a bomb in the Islamic prophet’s turban narrowly escaped with his life when attacked by a 28-year-old Somali reportedly sent on the mission by al-Qaida. More from the NYT:

“At one point during the attack, which took place late Friday, only a reinforced bathroom door protected the artist, Kurt Westergaard, 74, who was shielding his 5-year-old granddaughter as the attacker — armed with an ax and a knife and shouting ‘Revenge!’ and ‘Blood!’ — tried to smash through the door, according to an account the artist gave to the newspaper that employs him, Jyllands-Posten.

The artist and his granddaughter, who was on a sleepover at the house, were alone there when the attacker struck.

The suspect was wounded by police gunshots to the knee and hand when he resisted arrest after breaking into Mr. Westergaard’s home by smashing a rear window with the ax, according to a police statement.

…Among the few details about the assailant given by the police were that he had been involved in an immigration hearing after an attempt to deport him and that he had been granted the right of residence in Denmark.

But Jakob Scharf, chief of the Danish intelligence service, known as PET, said in a statement Friday night that the man had been under surveillance by the intelligence agency, and that the “‘attempted assassination’ of Mr. Westergaard was ‘terror related.’

The statement said that the agency had information that the Somali assailant ‘has close relations to the Somali terror organization Al Shabab and leaders of Al Qaeda in East Africa,’ that he was ‘part of a terror-related network with connection to Denmark,’ and that he was ‘also suspected of having been involved in terror-related activities during his stay in East Africa.’

Citing unnamed sources, the Danish newspaper Politiken reported that the Somali man had been detained by authorities in Kenya last summer in connection with a suspected plot against Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her visit there.”

More from the Times of London: Westergaard was saved by ducking into a panic room, but didn’t have time to grab his grandchild, who was unharmed.

It should also be noted that five were arrested in 2008 over a plot to kill Westergaard, and two Chicago residents allegedly hatched a plot this October to do the same.

(Photo Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)