Al Qaeda in Yemen Claims Responsibility for Paris Attack + New Video

Wed Jan 14, 2015 14:21:30

Top leader of Yemen's Al Qaeda branch has claimed responsibility for last week's attack on a Paris newspaper when two masked gunmen killed 12 people, including much of the weekly's editorial staff and two police officers.

Nasr al-Ansi, a top commander of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP as the branch is known, appeared in an 11-minute Internet video posted Wednesday, saying that the massacre at Charlie Hebdo was in "vengeance for the prophet." The paper had published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which is considered an insult in Islam.

Al-Ansi say France belongs to the "party of Satan" and warned of more "tragedies and terror." He says Yemen's Al Qaeda branch "chose the target, laid out the plan and financed the operation."

A video emerged Sunday on pro ISIS networks showing the gunman who killed five people in two attacks in Paris, pledging allegiance to the so-called “Islamic State”.

Amedy Coulibaly, 32, shot a policewoman on Thursday, before attacking the supermarket on Friday, where he opened fire, killing four people before taking hostages. He was killed during the police assault.

He boasts of belonging to IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and says the organization gave money to the Kouachi brothers to buy weapons and other equipment, the paper added.

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