( Sky ) - A Swedish artist who had a bounty put on his head by al Qaeda at the weekend has said that police have increased security around him.
Lars Vilks had a $100,000 (?49,000) contract put on him because of a cartoon he did that was seen as being insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Vilks said he was currently staying at a secret address in Sweden after security police described the threats against him as "very serious".
In a telephone interview with the AP news agency he said: "Police guard was non-existent before this. It's 100% now.
"I can't live in my home, I've only been allowed to pick up some things."
On Saturday, the alleged leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Omar al Baghdadi, put a bounty on the head of Vilks and the chief editor of local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.
On August 19 the paper published Vilks' cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a dog's body.
The bounty of $100,000 will be increased to $150,000 (?74,000) if he was "slaughtered like a lamb", the al Qaeda audio statement - posted on a website - said.
He also offered $50,000 (?24,000) for the killing of Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson.
The US says it does not believe Abu Omar al Baghdadi is a real person.
Instead it says he is a front for the organisation designed to make it look as if al Qaeda in Iraq is headed by an Iraqi, rather than being made up of foreign militants.
Last year Muslims around the world, including in the UK, held angry protests over a series of cartoons apparently mocking the Prophet Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper and were reprinted in several European countries.