Boko Haram leader rejoices over Paris massacre as Muslims stage protests over latest cartoon

Nigerian extremist group, Boko Haram has hailed the Paris massacres.

In a video posted online yesterday, the group's leader Abubakar Shekau had this to say:  'We are indeed happy with what happened in France,' 'We are happy over what befell the people of France... as their blood was shed inside their country as they (try to) safeguard their blood.’

Meanwhile, Muslims have staged angry protests across the world from Turkey to the Philippines over Charlie Hebdo's decision to depict the Prophet Mohammed on its latest front cover.

Around three million copies of the French satirical newspaper hit the stands this morning for the first since the terror attack on its office which killed 12 people.

The front cover showed a weeping Mohammed, holding a sign reading 'I am Charlie' with the words 'All is forgiven' above him.

The print run has since been increased to five million after issues sold out within minutes.

Copies have since been changing hands on eBay for three-figure sums as customers rush to get their hands on the edition. 

But many Muslims believe their faith forbids depictions of the prophet and reacted with dismay - and occasionally anger - to the latest cover image. 

Some felt their expressions of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo after last week's attack had been rebuffed, while others feared the cartoon would trigger yet more violence.  

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo, saying it was ordered by the jihadist network's global chief to avenge the French magazine's cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

In a video entitled 'A message regarding the blessed battle of Paris', Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said that it had financed and plotted the assault on the weekly that left 12 people dead and shocked France. 

But it said the orders had come from the very top of the global jihadist network - Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who succeeded Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden after his death in 2011.

'We, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the messenger of Allah,' Nasser al-Ansi, one of AQAP's chiefs, said in the video. 

Leading Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, formerly a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), praised the 'heroic and rare attack' in France, hailing the Kouachi brothers as 'two soldiers of Islam... who humiliated France.'

France 'thought that it was immune to the strikes of the mujahedeen,' he said in a statement. 

Across Europe, there was high demand for scarce copies of the latest edition and several newspapers ran extracts from Charlie Hebdo.

Spain's El Pais published two pages of the cartoons with Spanish translation, though it did not include any images of the prophet.

A small Italian newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano (The Daily Fact), published Charlie Hebdo as a 16-page supplement, in French with Italian translations of the captions.

'You're putting the lives of others at risk when you're taunting bloodthirsty and mad terrorists,' said Hamad Alfarhan, a 29-year old Kuwaiti doctor.  

In the Philippines, there were angry protests at the front cover and also the perceived double standards by the West. 

Placards by demonstrators in Marawi were held aloft which accused the West of remaining silent over the deaths of Muslims and that said 'You are Charlie, I love Mohammed'.

In one rally a picture of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was set on fire and banners waved that declared there would be no apology from the Islamic world for the Paris massacre. 

Mr Netanyahu became a central figure in the response to the attacks after four Jewish shoppers were killed by one of the Islamic fanatics at a kosher deli the day after the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

Meanwhile, Abbas Shumann, deputy to the Grand Sheik of Cairo's influential Al-Azhar mosque, said the new image was 'a blatant challenge to the feelings of Muslims who had sympathised with this newspaper.' 

But he said Muslims should ignore the cover and respond by 'showing tolerance, forgiveness and shedding light on the story of the prophet.'  

An angry reaction, he said, will 'not solve the problem but will instead add to the tension and the offense to Islam.'

In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood said it would stage a protest after Friday prayers in Amman in response to the paper's Mohammed cartoon.    

Spokesman Murad Adaileh said the brotherhood strongly condemned both the killings and the 'offensive' against the prophet.

Culled from Daily mail