Hebdo massacre terror chief dies in drone strike

THE senior al Qaeda commander who admitted responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris has been killed in a US drone strike.

Nasr al-Ansi caused outage in January when he gloated over the murders of 17 people by France-born Islamists.

Two of them — brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi — both said they were working for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Ansi’s Yemen- based organisation. It has now confirmed that he was himself killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen on April 21, along with up to six other known terrorists.

In an online video, an AQAP spokesman said al-Ansi’s son, Mohammed, was also among the victims.

Those murdered in Paris included cartoonists and journalists from the satiric al magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had published pictures of the Prophet Mohammed. The Kouachi brothers and a third terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, were themselves killed by police following sieges.

Afterwards, al-Ansi gloated over the atrocities, which also saw four Jewish people shot dead in a Kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.

Al-Ansi, who was close to the late terror chief Osama bin Laden, had called for more attacks in countries including Britain and America.

In an 11-minute video on the group’s Twitter account, al-Ansi had warned of “more tragedies and terror”.

Washing ton rarely comments on drone attacks, but US government sources confirmed that a drone had been “operational” in the area where al-Ansi died. In the video message, al-Ansi said the branch had chosen, planned and financed the Charlie Hebdo massacre. “When the heroes were assigned, they accepted. They promised and fulfilled,” al-Ansi said.

He praised the attack, saying it was revenge for Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of Mohammed. Al-Ansi blamed not only Charlie Hebdo, but also France and the United States