Salman Rushdie Afghanistan, which began in 2001, but was a vocal critic of the 2003 war in Iraq. He has stated that while there was a "case to be made for the removal of Saddam Hussein", US unilateral military intervention was unjustifiable. In the wake of the "Jyllands-Posten" Muhammad cartoons controversy in March 2006—which many considered an echo of the death threats and "fatwā" that followed publication of "The Satanic Verses" in 1989—Rushdie signed the manifesto "Together Facing the New Totalitarianism", a statement warning of the dangers of religious extremism. The Manifesto was published in the left-leaning French weekly "Charlie Hebdo" in
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie around the 2007 London car bombs occurred CBS News on 29 June 2007 reported that a message appeared on the widely used militant Internet forum Al-Hesbah at 08:09, 28 June 17 hours before the first car bomb was discovered. It read "In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Is Britain Longing for al Qaeda's bombings? We, and the whole world has seen what Britain has done ... their intention to honour Salman Rushdie who insulted and slandered Islam. This 'honoring' came at a crucial time, a time when the whole nation is reeling from the crusaders