DUBAI Al Qaeda in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, saying it was ordered by the Islamist militant group's leadership for insults to the Prophet Mohammad, according to a video posted on YouTube. 
 
 Gunmen killed 17 people in three days of violence that began when they shot staff in Charlie Hebdo's offices last week in revenge for the publication of satirical images of the Prophet. 
 
 One Western source said no hard evidence of a direct operational link to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had yet been found. 
 
 But it was the first time that a group had officially claimed responsibility for the attack, which was led by Cherif and Said Kouachi, two French-born brothers of Algerian extraction who had visited Yemen in 2011. 
 
 In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman said the United States believed the video was authentic but officials were still determining if the claim of responsibility is true. 
 
 "As for the blessed Battle of Paris, we...claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger of God," Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, an AQAP ideologue, said in the recording. 
 
 Ansi said the "one who chose the target, laid the plan and financed the operation is the leadership of the organization", without naming an individual. 
 
 "ZAWAHRI'S ORDERS" 
 
 He added that the strike had been carried out in "implementation" of the order of overall al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who has urged Muslims to attack the West using any means they can find. 
 
 Ansi also gave credit for the operation to slain AQAP propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, a preacher cited by one of the gunmen in remarks to French media as a financier of the attack. 
 
 It was not clear how Awlaki, killed by a U.S. drone in 2011, had a direct link to the Paris assault, but he inspired several militants in the United States and Britain to acts of violence. 
 
 The purported claim of responsibility put a new spotlight on a group often cited by Western officials as al Qaeda's most dangerous branch. AQAP has recently focused on fighting government forces and Shi'ite rebels in Yemen, but says it still aims to carry out attacks abroad. 
 
 AQAP mocked a huge rally of solidarity for the victims held in Paris on Sunday, saying the shock on display showed the feebleness of the Western leaders who attended. 
 
 "Look at how they gathered, rallied and supported each other, strengthening their weakness and dressing their wounds," it said. 
 
 Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State released a video that it said showed interviews with three French fighters in Syria praising the attacks, the SITE monitoring service reported. 
 
 One said: "I say to the French people who think that the Islamic State will not reach Europe: With permission from Allah the Almighty, we will reach Europe – all of Europe." 
 
 "JOY AT TORMENT" 
 
 SITE also said Nigeria's Boko Haram group had released a video showing its leader welcoming the attacks. “We have felt joy for what befell the people of France in terms of torment, as their blood was spilled inside their country. Allah is Great!" Abubakar Shekau said in the recording, according to SITE. 
 
 One Western source described Ansi as an Al Qaeda hawk reputed to have advocated a merger with the even more hardline Islamic State. 
 
 Two senior Yemeni sources said Cherif and Said Kouachi had met Awlaki in Yemen and undergone weapons training in the eastern province of Marib. However, a Marib tribal leader denied that they had trained there in 2011 or that Awlaki had been based there. 
 
 AQAP's Yemeni leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, was once a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose father was born in Yemen, a neighbor of Saudi Arabia. 
 
 Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi complained on Wednesday that Yemen had been subjected to a politicized media campaign over the alleged 2011 visit. 
 
 "The person reported to have traveled to Yemen to learn in three days how to fire a pistol had been detained and under investigation for two years in France," Hadi said, according to the state news agency Saba. Hadi asked why such suspicious elements had been allowed to travel to Yemen and return home without being questioned. 
 
 (Reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Yara Bayoumy in Dubai, Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa and Lesley Wroughton and Doina Chiacu in Washington, Editing by William Maclean, Dominic Evans and Kevin Liffey) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from a kiosk in Paris as people queue to buy the latest issue 
 
 Millions more copies of French weekly Charlie Hebdo are being printed after the first run sold out in hours. 
 
 The normal print run of 60,000 was extended to five million - a week after Islamist gunmen murdered 12 people at the magazine's offices and five others in subsequent attacks in Paris. 
 
 The "survivors' issue" has angered some Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. 
 
 A video purportedly from al-Qaeda in Yemen said it planned the Hebdo attack. 
 
 US state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said they believed the video was authentic but could not determine if its claims were true. 
 
 The group, AQAP, had previously welcomed the attack, without acknowledging any role in the operation. 
 
 The gunmen are said to have used earlier publication of images of the Prophet as justification for their attack on the magazine. 
 
 Charlie Hebdo's latest cover shows a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad weeping while holding a sign saying "I am Charlie", and below the headline "All is forgiven". 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption People waited for kiosks to open to buy the magazine 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption All copies of the magazine were sold out by Wednesday morning at this Paris newsstand 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption Some kiosks said they had received dozens of reservation requests 
 
 "I am Charlie" emerged as a message of support for the magazine following the attack on 7 January, which left eight journalists, including its editor, dead in addition to four others. 
 
 In a separate attack in Paris two days later, an Islamist gunman killed four Jewish men and took hostages at a kosher shop. 
 
 The same attacker is believed to have shot a policewoman the day before. 
 
 'Charlie is alive' 
 
 Normally Charlie Hebdo prints 60,000 copies but the planned run increased steadily this week - from one million to three million to five million. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Gerard Biard comforted Renald "Luz" Luzier, who drew the latest cover, at a news conference 
 
 The "survivors' issue", as the magazine calls it, is available in six languages including English, Arabic and Turkish. Proceeds are going to victims' families. 
 
 President Francois Hollande has insisted the magazine and its values will continue. 
 
 "Charlie Hebdo is alive and will live on," he said. "You can assassinate men and women but you will never kill their ideas." 
 
 Charlie Hebdo's decision to publish another cartoon of the Prophet drew threats from militant Islamist websites and criticism from the Islamic world. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption On Sunday, about 1.5 million people rallied in Paris in a show of solidarity with the victims 
 
 The Islamic State (IS) militant group said it was "an extremely stupid act". 
 
 Meanwhile, a new video apparently from AQAP said the group had planned and financed the Charlie Hebdo attacks in "vengeance for the Prophet". 
 
 It said it was a "success" that the magazine shootings had "coincided" with the attacks by supermarket gunman Amedy Coulibaly. 
 
 Analysis: BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner 
 
 The video purporting to come from AQAP does appear to be genuine but questions remain over just how closely AQAP was really involved in last week's Paris attacks. More than two years have elapsed since Said Kouachi, one of the three gunmen, is believed to have slipped out of Yemen after spending time there with al-Qaeda members, including the extremist preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki. 
 
 He is mentioned in the video in connection with the attack planning but Al-Awlaki was killed back in 2011 in a US drone strike so, again, that would be a long time to plan such a relatively simple but devastating attack. 
 
 It is also odd that AQAP have not issued any so-called "martyrdom videos", showing the perpetrators giving their justifications ahead of the raid. 
 
 These may still be to come but for now it seems the connection between the Paris attackers and AQAP is more one of inspiration, ideology and training rather than close direction and leadership. 
 
 Were gunmen aided by terror network? 
 
 Coulibaly had pledged allegiance to IS in a video message while the Charlie Hebdo attackers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, had said they were acting on behalf of AQAP. 
 
 Coulibaly had said they had co-ordinated the attacks but experts say it is highly unlikely IS and AQAP, rivals in the Middle East, would work together. 
 
 Meanwhile a lawyer for Said Kouachi's wife, Soumya, has told the BBC she had no idea he was an extremist. He said Kouachi had kissed his wife goodbye and told her he was visiting his brother, because he was unwell, just hours before the Charlie Hebdo attack. 
 
 "It's beyond her understanding, her world has fallen apart," the lawyer, Antoine Flasaquier, said. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Soumya Kouachi's lawyer: "Her husband told her he was going to Paris to see his brother Cherif" 
 
 Ban on distribution 
 
 The magazine's release comes after millions - including dozens of world leaders - took part in a unity rally in Paris on Sunday. 
 
 Outside France, the Washington Post, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine, Corriere della Sera in Italy and the UK's Guardian are among publications that have shown the latest cartoon. 
 
 The BBC has published the image in a previous story and in a statement said: "We have made the editorial judgment that the images are central to reporting the story." 
 
 Why people are buying the magazine 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why do Parisians say it is important to buy this issue of Charlie Hebdo? 
 
 Catherine Boniface, Paris: "This issue is symbolic, it represents their persistence, they didn't yield in the face of terror." 
 
 Read more: In the queue for Charlie Hebdo 
 
 Read more: Charlie Hebdo's place in French journalism 
 
 Read more: The issue of depicting the Prophet Muhammad 
 
 Meanwhile, the interior minister of Senegal - whose president took part in the Paris march - has issued an order banning the distribution of the magazine, according to the national news agency. 
 
 Comedian arrested 
 
 Several hundred people attended the funeral on Wednesday of Michel Renaud, who was killed while visiting Charlie Hebdo's offices. 
 
 Ceremonies were held for seven other victims in France and Israel on Tuesday. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption New mobile phone footage shows the Kouachi brothers opening fire on police 
 
 Meanwhile, controversial French comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala has been arrested for "defending terrorism" after he likened himself to gunman Amedy Coulibaly. 
 
 A judicial source quoted by AFP news agency said he was due to be released on Wednesday evening but would face trial at a later date. 
 
 Police are also investigating some 50 people suspected of "condoning terrorism" and 25 cases of people attacking or defacing Muslim places of worship. 
 
 How the attacks unfolded (all times GMT) 
 
 Wednesday 7 January 10:30 - Two masked gunmen enter Charlie Hebdo offices, killing 11 people, including the magazine's editor. Shortly after the attack, the gunmen kill a police officer nearby. 
 
 10:30 - Two masked gunmen enter Charlie Hebdo offices, killing 11 people, including the magazine's editor. Shortly after the attack, the gunmen kill a police officer nearby. 11:00 - Police lose track of the men after they abandon their getaway car and hijack another vehicle. They are later identified as brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi. 
 
 Thursday 8 January 08:45 - A lone gunman shoots dead a policewoman and injures a man in the south of Paris. Gunman later identified as Amedy Coulibaly. 
 
 08:45 - A lone gunman shoots dead a policewoman and injures a man in the south of Paris. Gunman later identified as Amedy Coulibaly. 10:30 - The Kouachi brothers rob a service station near Villers-Cotterets, in the Aisne region, but disappear again. 
 
 Friday 9 January 08:30 - Police exchange gunfire with the Kouachi brothers during a car chase on the National 2 highway northeast of Paris. 
 
 08:30 - Police exchange gunfire with the Kouachi brothers during a car chase on the National 2 highway northeast of Paris. 10:00 - Police surround the brothers at an industrial building in at Dammartin-en-Goele, 35km (22 miles) from Paris. 
 
 12:15 - Coulibaly reappears and takes several people hostage at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris. Heavily armed police arrive and surround the store. 
 
 16:00 - Kouachi brothers come out of the warehouse, firing at police. They are both shot dead. 
 
 16:15 - Police storm the kosher supermarket in Paris, killing Coulibaly and rescuing 15 hostages. The bodies of four hostages are recovered. 
 
 Three days of terror
– Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in an online video called "Vengeance for the Prophet: A Message Regarding the Blessed Battle of Paris," the New York Times reports. The group says it "chose the target, laid the plan, and financed the operation" in "a vengeance for the messenger of Allah"—a likely reference to Charlie Hebdo's parodies of the Prophet Muhammad. But while AQAP called the Kouachi brothers "two heroes of Islam," it suggests it wasn't behind the attacks that followed, including on a kosher supermarket. Gunman Amedy Coulibaly's actions were a coincidence, the statement says, calling him simply a "mujahid brother." The Charlie Hebdo attackers claimed to be working for AQAP, while Coulibaly has pledged support for ISIS, the BBC notes. The statement, made by AQAP leader Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, says the attack was an "implementation" of orders from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the larger al-Qaeda group, Reuters reports. The video also featured an image of the Eiffel Tower dissolving, the Times reports. Meanwhile, today's issue of Charlie Hebdo sold out in minutes.