David Letterman has been marked for death by a frequent contributor to a jihadist website, Shumuka al-Islam forum.
The contributor is pleading that Muslims “cut the tongue” of the late-night host all because of a seemingly-offensive joke Letterman said on his CBS show.
The contributor, who has identified himself as Umar al-Basrawi, apparently has not taken a liking to one of Letterman’s jokes made after the U.S. military announced that it had killed al-Qaida leader Ilyas Kashmiri in Pakistan.
“Is there not among you a Sayyid Nosair al-Mairi … to cut the tongue of this lowly Jew and shut it forever?” [El Sayyid Nosair was convicted of the 1990 killing of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane.] For the record, not that it matters, Letterman is not Jewish.
The FBI is obviously checking out the threat, and a spokesman for the Bureau said: “We take every potential threat seriously.”
Neither CBS nor Letterman have yet commented on the threat. And CBS would not make available a transcript of Letterman’s joke on the killing of Kashmiri.