Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Al-Qaida in Yemen takes responsibility for Paris attack

Al-Qaida in Yemen takes responsibility for Paris attack

 http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/01/14/npr-paris-attack

Issues Eyder Peralta · ·
In a YouTube video released by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasr al-Ansi, a commander, takes responsibility for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris. 
Al-Qaida in Yemen has taken responsibility for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris that left 12 people dead.

In a YouTube video, Nasr al-Ansi, a top commander of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said the attack was in vengeance for the Prophet Muhammad.

In a graphic released on Twitter by the group, they say the leadership of AQAP planned and financed the operation against Charlie Hebdo, which printed cartoon depictions of the prophet, despite threats.
"We did it in compliance with the Command of Allah and supporting His Messenger," the message read.

In the almost 12-minute video, al-Ansi congratulates, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the two gunmen in Paris, and exhorts Muslims across the world to "take vengeance for Muslim blood spilled."

As al-Ansi speaks, video of the attack in Paris and of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center plays in the background.

Al-Ansi also issues a warning to the West.

"Stop your insults on our prophet and sanctities," al-Ansi says. "Stop spilling our blood. Leave our lands. Quit plundering our resources."

Otherwise, he says, "you will look for peace and stability, but you will not find it."

The New York Times reports that al-Ansi does not take responsibility for the attack on a Kosher supermarket that started during the manhunt for the Kouachi brothers, but he does call Amedy Coulibaly, who police say perpetrated the attack, a "mujahid brother."

The paper adds:
"A member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, said the joint timing of the two operations was a result of the friendship between Mr. Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers and not a reflection of common planning between the Qaeda group and the Islamic State.
"Mr. Coulibaly, who had been imprisoned for a host of petty crime offenses, met Chérif Kouachi in jail, where Mr. Kouachi was serving time in 2005 and 2006 for belonging to a terrorist cell in Paris that sent young men to fight in Iraq."
There are two major U.S. plots attributed to AQAP: First in Dec. 25, 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, colloquially known as the "underwear bomber," tried to detonate an explosive aboard a Detroit-bound flight. 

In 2010, the organization was suspected of trying to pack explosives in printer ink cartridges. 

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