'Al-Qaeda' threatens to kill newspaper editor (Australia)

A MAN claiming to represent al-Qaeda in Australia has left a telephone message at an Arabic Australian newspaper threatening to kill its editor-in-chief and destroy its offices in Sydney and Melbourne.

Apparently reading from a script, the Arabic-speaking caller threatened to butcher every Iraqi Kurd and Shiite in Australia.

ASIO and NSW police are investigating the message, left for al-Furat editor-in-chief Hussein Khoshnow 10 days ago.

The caller claims his "well-structured organisation" will track down the names and addresses of the newspaper's reporters.

"We will destroy the newspaper's headquarters in Sydney very soon, God willing," the caller says. "We will destroy the newspaper's headquarters in Melbourne. You will be butchered. Every Iraqi Kurd and Shiite in Australia will be butchered."

The threats, made on Sunday, January 14, were left on the answering machine in the newspaper's Fairfield office. They appeared to have been written down and then read over the phone in Arabic.

"Judging by the voice, I think it was a young man and from the way he spoke Arabic, his vocabulary and his accent, I think he might have been born here but of Yemeni or Syrian origin," Mr Khoshnow said.

news.com.au For full article.