Al Qaeda in Yemen Wednesday claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo, saying it was ordered by the jihadist network's global chief to avenge the French magazine's cartoons. In a video entitled "A message regarding the blessed battle of Paris", al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said that it had financed and plotted the assault on the weekly that left 12 people dead and shocked France.
But it said the orders had come from the very top of the global jihadist network - Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who succeeded al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden after his death in 2011. "We, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the messenger of Allah," Nasser al-Ansi, one of AQAP's chiefs, said in the video.
The perpetrators of the attack, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, were known to have trained with al Qaeda in Yemen. AQAP was formed in January 2009 as a merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of al Qaeda. "The leadership of (AQAP) was the party that chose the target and plotted and financed the plan... It was following orders by our general chief Ayman al-Zawahiri," Ansi said of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Ansi referenced a warning by bin Laden, who was killed by US commandos in Pakistan. "If the freedom of your speech is not restrained, then you should accept the freedom of our actions," he said.