iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — A senior commander of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who claimed publicly that his group was behind the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo‘s office in Paris has been killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.
The news of Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi’s death was revealed by AQAP officials. Washington does not comment directly about militants it targets with unmanned surveillance aircraft.
It was last January that al-Ansi issued a claim of responsibility for the attack in Paris by two Algerian men who shot 12 people dead at the offices of the satiric newspaper that regularly mocked the Prophet Muhammad.
A week later, al-Ansi urged AQAP followers to conduct more lone-wolf attacks in Europe and North America.
More recently, he called on Sunnis in Yemen to fight back against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are reportedly supported by the Iranian government.
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