Charlie Hebdo suffers new threats by Al Qaeda after they republished cartoons

AL QAEDA has once again threatened the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which republished cartoons of the prophet of Islam Muhammad at the beginning of the trial for the January 2015 attack on the newspaper.

According to the US group SITE, Search for International Terrorist Entities, who specialise in the surveillance of jihadist organisations, Al Qaeda would once again put this publication in the spotlight.

On Friday, September 11, the anniversary of the September 2001 attacks against the United States jihadist organisation have warned in a publication ‘One Ummah’ that the attack against Charlie Hebdo “was not a specific event,” and said, “If your freedom of expression does not respect limits, prepare to confront the freedom of our actions.” 

On September 2, the day the trial began in Paris against the terrorists who attacked the newsroom in 2015, Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons of Muhammad for which the jihadist group targeted the publication in 2006.

On January 7, 2015, the Kouachi brothers killed 11 people in a weapons-of-war attack on the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in Paris, before fleeing after killing a police officer. The next day, Amédy Coulibaly, who met Chérif Kouachi in prison, killed a policewoman near Paris, then, on January 9, executed four men, all Jews, during the Hyper supermarket hostage-taking in the east of Paris.

The three jihadists were killed during a double police assault, carried out almost simultaneously at the store and at a printing press in the Paris region where Charlie Hebdo’s killers had taken refuge.

In total there are 14 defendants: ten in provisional detention, one released under judicial control and three others, including Coulibaly’s partner, Hayat Boumeddiene, on a search and arrest warrant, who faces sentences ranging from life imprisonment to 10 and 20 years in prison.

They are accused of participating in a criminal terrorist organisation and of varying degrees of complicity, either in the provision of logistical, financial or material support, such as weapons or vehicles.

The trial is set to end on November 10.