Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt appealed for calm, after Al-Qaeda issued a death warrant on two journalists following the publication of controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.

"We are appealing for calm, we are appealing for reflection, we reject these calls to violence and we reject any attempts to aggravate the situation," said Reinfeldt.

Extremists from Al-Qaeda in Iraq put $150,000 on the head of cacrtoonist Lars Vilks and $50,000 on Ulf Johansson, editor of Nerikes Allehanda, which published the caricature.

The Swedish press has rallied alongside the threatened journalists.

"We live in a country where freedom of expression is not dictated by fundamentalists, nor by governments," wrote Thorbjoern Larsson, editor of Dagens Nyheter, in an editorial.

The World Association of Newspapers has published a press release in response to the Swedish press' outcries.

Source: AFP – France 24