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Al-Qaeda's Paris attack not the first to target cartoonists

Al-Qaeda's attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris is not the group's first targeting of European cartoonists, as the group had planned to attack the offices of a Danish newspaper in 2009.
A protester shouts slogans during a demonstration against satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, which featured a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad as the cover of its first edition since an attack by Islamist gunmen, in front of the French embassy in Sanaa January 17, 2015. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi (YEMEN - Tags: CIVIL UNREST) - RTR4LS4B
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The terrorist attack in Paris targeting the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was not the first al-Qaeda plot to attack cartoonists in Europe. A plot foiled in 2009 to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was eerily similar to the Paris operation and was connected directly to the senior al-Qaeda leadership.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed credit for the Paris attack in a series of messages, tweets and a video released Jan. 13. The 11-minute video featured AQAP ideologue Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, who unequivocally said AQAP "chose the target, laid the plan and financed the operation." This is consistent with media reports that at least one of the two French-Algerian brothers who carried out the attack trained with AQAP in Yemen.

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