Koran Burner Tells Cops Of Death Threat

MAY 4--Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose anti-Islam stunts have landed him on the al-Qaeda kill list, contacted police last week to report that his life was threatened by a man who approached him at the french fry stand he operates inside a Bradenton mall.

Jones, 63, told the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office that he was at the Fry Guys Gourmet Fries stand last Wednesday when an “unknown black male” approached the eatery’s front counter, according to a police report.

Based on an interview with Jones, a deputy reported that the man “stated that Terry should have never come to this county” and that “after work Terry would need his gun if he had one.”

After threatening Jones, the man fled the DeSoto Square mall. “Terry stated that the male appeared to have mental health issues,” reported Deputy John Smith, who added that the controversial pastor “stated that he just wanted the incident documented.”

Jones, whose Dove World Outreach Center, a small Christian fundamentalist church, was long headquartered in Gainesville, relocated 165 miles south to the Bradenton area more than a year ago.

Jones opened the “Fry Guys” business several months ago, much to the alarm of mall management which was unaware of his affiliation with the business. The presence of Jones, an al-Qaeda target, inside a mall filled with innocent shoppers appears a legitimate cause for concern.

Jones, who works the food counter with a gun in an ankle holster, has enraged followers of Islam by burning copies of the Koran and outfitting children with t-shirts declaring “Islam is of the Devil.” He was at the top of an al-Qaeda hit list that appeared in 2013 in “Inspire,” the online magazine reportedly published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The 11-person hit list included Stéphane Charbonnier, the French cartoonist and “Charlie Hebdo” publisher. Charbonnier was one of the staffers killed last year during the terrorist attack on the “Charlie Hebdo” office in Paris.

Another target on the hit list is Geert Wilders, a right-wing Dutch politician who has compared the Koran to “Mein Kampf” and has said, "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam.” Wilders was the keynote speaker yesterday at the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest” in Garland, Texas.

The event, sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, was targeted last night by a pair of gunmen who opened fire outside the building where Wilders addressed about 200 attendees. Both gunmen--who were carrying assault rifles--were shot to death by a Garland police officer.

Investigators today identified one of the dead men as Elton Simpson, a Phoenix resident who was previosuly convicted of lying to the FBI when questioned about his alleged plans to travel to Somalia to wage jihad with members of the Al-Shabaab terror group. (1 page)