Yemen's Al-Qaida Claims Attack On Charlie Hedbo

Yemen’s faction terrorist group al-Qaida on Wednesday claimed responsibility for last week’s massacre at a Paris satirical newspaper, with one of its top commanders saying the assault was in revenge for the weekly’s publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, considered an insult in Islam. 

Yahoo news report that The claim came in a video posting by Nasr al-Ansi, a top commander of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which appeared on the group’s Twitter account.

In the 11-minute video, al-Ansi says the assault on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people including editors, cartoonists and journalists, as well as two police officers was in “revenge for the prophet.”

He said AQAP, as the branch is known, “chose the target, laid out the plan and financed the operation” against the weekly, though he produced no evidence to support the claim.

Al-Ansi claimed orders came from al-Qaida’s top leader Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s successor. The attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris was the beginning of three days of terror in France that saw 17 people killed before the three Islamic extremist attackers were gunned down by security forces.

Al-Ansi also hailed Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi who carried out the attack on the paper as heroes.

“Congratulations to you, the Nation of Islam, for this revenge that has soothed our pain. Congratulations to you for these brave men have blown off the dust of disgrace and lit the torch of glory in the darkness of defeat and agony.”

The leader is quoted as saying by yahoo news.

Yahoo news also report that in the video, al-Ansi made no claim to the subsequent Paris attack on a kosher grocery store, during which a friend of Kouachi – Amedy Coulibaly, killed a French policewoman Thursday and four hostages on Friday.