Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- A Seattle cartoonist who drew a cartoon about the Prophet Mohammed has been warned by the FBI about death threats made against her by a radical cleric with ties to al Qaeda, an FBI agent said Tuesday.

"She should be taken as a prime target of assassination," terror suspect Anwar al-Awlaki purportedly wrote about cartoonist Molly Norris in an English-language magazine called Inspire that claimed to be a publication of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

"This campaign is not a practice of freedom of speech, but is a nationwide mass movement of Americans" who are "going out of their way to offend Muslims worldwide," the article signed by al-Awlaki continued. Al-Awlaki is himself being sought in Yemen for his alleged role as a planner of the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger plane on Christmas Day last year.

Norris has been advised to take precautions to ensure her safety, said FBI Special Agent Marty Prewett.

"The FBI is always reviewing and assessing information it receives," Prewett said. "Whenever the FBI comes into possession of information of a threatening nature to an individual, we let that person know so they can take appropriate security measures. That is the case here."

Prewitt declined to comment on where Norris is and whether she is receiving protection from law enforcement. Al-Awlaki also threatened eight other cartoonists, journalists and writers from Britain, Sweden and Holland.

Norris kicked off a controversy in April with a cartoon published online about an imaginary group called "Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor" that proposed an "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" on May 20.

Norris said in media interviews at the time that she was inspired by the furor created from an episode of the show "South Park" that depicted the Propeht Mohammed dressed in a bear suit.

Comedy Central, which airs "South Park," aired an edited version of the episode after the show's creators received threats.

Norris' cartoon inspired a campaign to create pictures of the Islamic prophet across the internet with over 100,000 people signing up on a Facebook page. A Pakistani court ordered access to Facebook there cut off for two weeks. Competing sites blasted the campaign also drew tens of thousands of followers.

Many Muslims find drawings and other depitcions of the Prophet Mohammed to be deeply offensive.

Norris said the consequences of the drawing were unintended. "I wasn't savvy," the cartoonist said in an interview last month with City Arts Magazine, where many of her cartoons were published. "I didn't mean for my satirical poster to be taken seriously. It became kind of an excuse for people to hate or be mean-spirited. I'm not-mean spirited," Norris said.

An editor at City Arts said neither the magazine nor Norris had any comment on the death threats against her.

Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic terror groups online communications, said al-Awlaki's threats constituted a continued effort to reach a wider audience and should not be taken lightly.

"The prophet is the pinnacle of Jihad [for al-Awlaki and his followers]," he said. "It is better to support the prophet by attacking those who slander him than it is to travel to land of Jihad like Iraq or Afghanistan."

In February an ax-wielding man broke into the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard who has been targeted by extremists for his drawing of Mohammed. He and his grandaughter hid in a fortified "panic room" during the attack.

this is just getting to be ridiculous...

religious zealots often are.

i can respect peoples religious beliefs, but what about our freedoms too? we have a right to free speech over here, and we don't go over to their part of the world to "insult Mohammad", and this not a muslim state, why should we walk on pins and needles trying not to piss them off?

Our religious zealots here would probably do the same if we made fun of their god at a level they found offensive.

Religious fanaticism is dangerous not matter what the religion

won't argue there...

yes, it is a shame,,, just like bigotry infiltrates any organization, so does zealotry


sad that people cant learn to talk things out instead of resorting to violence and murder,,,

So they are offended by a cartoon.....and yet they want us to take them seriously.

They are a stupid race of people.

i wouldn't say any race of people is stupid, but it really don't seem very smart...

Many religions have deeply embedded beliefs against showing their gods and/or prophets in depicted in human form..its agaisnt islamic belief to show the image of Mohammed...yes, they are offended by a cartoon, its their religion, its their right...

some are more offended than others. violence is also proscribed by islam. so it is permissible to attack and murder someone who is not islamic because they have made an obviously joking and irreverent comment or depiction of your religion? this poster falls far short of mockery. it is very innocuous - merely aiming to point out that calling one object by another's name and image is silly.

i don't think so.
for many hundreds of years islam had been known as extremely tolerant of others and a leader in secular education in all aspects.

very few muslims actually believe that a cartoon or movie or writing constitutes an offense against islam so serious that it would justify harming someone.

its not so much whether someone gets offended,, thats natural, its how they handle it,,,

very true, i can't think of anything that someone could print or write that would make me want to kill anyone.

You are mostly correct but 1% of a billion is not a very few.

yeah - percentage-wise it is small but in absolute numbers...
the problem is, no one knows how large the percentage is who
would tolerate violence in the name of islam. but as you say
it is likely to be a very large number.

no one really knows how many people actually believe that the
girl who made the poster deserves to be treated this way

it is obscene that anyone should be targeted for violence
based on any cartoon, book or movie.

even if there is only one such person who harms others over
their writings or artwork that is one too many.

to kill for a religious belief makes it even worse.

From Wiki:

* Gallup conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than thirty-five predominantly Muslim countries between 2001 and 2007. It found that – contrary to the prevailing perception in the west that the actions of al-Qaida enjoy wide support in the Muslim world – more than 90% of respondents condemned the killing of non-combatants on religious and humanitarian grounds [157]

* The not-for-profit group Terror Free Tomorrow carried out a public-opinion survey seeking to establish why people support or oppose extremism; it found that fewer than 10% of Saudis had a favourable opinion of al-Qaida, and 88% approved of the Saudi authorities pursuing al-Qaida operatives [157]

* In Pakistan, despite the recent rise in the Taliban's influence, a poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow in Pakistan in January 2008 tested support for al-Qaida, the Taliban, other militant Islamist groups and Osama bin Laden himself, and found a recent drop by half. In August 2007, 33% of Pakistanis expressed support for al-Qaida; 38% supported the Taliban. By January 2008, al-Qaida's support had dropped to 18%, the Taliban's to 19%. When asked if they would vote for al-Qaida, just 1% of Pakistanis polled answered in the affirmative. The Taliban had the support of 3% of those polled [157]

* Pew Research surveys in 2008 show that in a range of countries – Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh – there have been substantial declines in the percentages saying suicide-bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets can be justified to defend Islam against its enemies. Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable [157]

* The shift has been especially dramatic in Jordan, where 29% of Jordanians are recorded as viewing suicide-attacks as often or sometimes justified (down from 57% in May 2005). In the largest majority-Muslim nation, Indonesia, 74% of respondents agree that terrorist attacks are "never justified" (a substantial decline from the 41% level to which support had risen in March 2004); in Pakistan, that figure is 86%; in Bangladesh, 81%; and in Iran, 80% [157]

Some points should be made here. People who are terrorists or support terrorism seldom admit to it publicly or to people they do not know.

In order to operate, large amounts of funds are necessary which are coming from "somewhere". Giving money to terrorists is the same as performing the act the money buys.

Those in the Islamic world who actually support terrorist groups may be 10% of the population ... or higher.

and 10% of a billion is...... 100,000,000.... No.. there is no problem here..

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

-Thomas Jefferson