A man believed to be a fugitive Al Qaeda member has appeared in an Internet video calling upon Muslims to attack Denmark, Norway and France for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed earlier this year.

In the video, posted May 11, 2006, on Web sites often used by militants, Mohammed Hassan, a Libyan who escaped U.S. custody in Afghanistan last year, says “Denmark, Norway and France, you enemies of Islam, you have committed a grave offence against God and his Prophet.”

Hassan, dressed in military fatigues and a black turban, and holding a rifle, urges Muslims to “avenge your prophet” and to “destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood.”

The 35-minute video is dated February 2006, the same month controversy and violence erupted around the world in response to the printed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers.

Hassan, who is also known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, is one of four suspected Al Qaeda militants who escaped from the high-security detention facility at Bagram, the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan, in July 2005.   

The video is produced by Al Sahab (Arabic for “the clouds”), a purported Al-Qaeda production company.  Al Sahab has produced many jihadist videos and training material on DVD and its logo appears in this latest video.

The video was posted three weeks after an audiotape from Osama bin Laden called for a boycott of products from the U.S. and European countries which supported Denmark over the publication of the cartoons.