Al Qaeda branch claims responsibility for Charlie Hebdo attack

This still image grab from a video posted online shows purportedly shows Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi delivering a video message from an undisclosed location and claiming responsibility for the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's offices in Paris. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
See video AFTER THE CUT...........

BEIRUT—A senior leader of al Qaeda’s Yemen branch claimed responsibility for last week’s attacks on French weekly Charlie Hebdo in a video statement Wednesday, saying the organization FINANCED and planned the operation.

Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi claimed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula planned the attacks with brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi.

AQAP’s leadership had targeted Charlie Hebdo’s top editor for the magazine’s satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, publishing his name and photograph.

The leadership of AQAP “chose the target, laid the plan and FINANCED the operation,” Mr. Ansi said in the 11-minute video, adding that AQAP “claim responsibility for this operation as a vengeance for the Messenger of Allah,” referring to the Prophet Muhammad.”

Former neighbors and Yemeni officials say Said, the older of the two Kouachi brothers,spent close to two years in Yemen. His younger brother Chérif also spent time in Yemen in 2011, according to U.S. and French officials.

In Yemen, Said befriended Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , who was convicted in the U.S. on terrorism offenses after trying to detonate explosives given to him by AQAP and hidden in his underwear on a Detroit-bound aircraft on Christmas Day of 2009.

The AQAP statement praised the attacks on Charlie Hebdo for coinciding with a separate operation by Amedy Coulibaly that killed a policewoman and four civilians at a kosher grocery store in Paris. AQAP didn't take responsibility for Mr. Coulibaly’s attacks.

A video circulated Sunday appeared to show Mr. Coulibaly pledging allegiance to Islamic State and its self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Bahdadi. Islamic State and al Qaeda arelocked in a battle for supremacy in the jihadist movement.

In the video, the man who appears to be Mr. Coulibaly describes Chérif Kouachi as part of the same team, and said he had lent him a few thousand euros to attack the magazine.

Last week’s attack has turned Charlie Hebdo into a world symbol of freedom of expression. Distributors said Wednesday they are expanding the print run of the first issue since the attacks to as many as 5 million copies following heavy demand.

The issue puts a caricature of Muhammad on the cover, holding a sign saying “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie,” the slogan of solidarity that has spread around the world.

Source: wsj.com