AL-QAIDA in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility today for last week’s brutal massacre of Charlie Hebdo journalists.

Nasr al-Ansi, one of the Yemen-based terror network’s commanders, released an 11-minute video claiming his outfit had “chosen the target, laid out the plan and financed the operation,” but provided no evidence to support the claim.

Mr Ansi said France belonged to “the party of Satan” and “shared all of America’s crimes.” He went on to threaten “more tragedies and terror.”

If verified, the Paris assault would be AQAP’s first successful strike outside Yemen.

But despite his threats the mood in France remained defiant, with a vastly expanded print run of Charlie Hebdo selling out before dawn.

The rush to buy the paper did not reflect the community solidarity that has marked demonstrations in France since the wave of terror, with many newspaper vendors reporting fisticuffs among customers desperate to get their hands on a copy.

Authorities said they had arrested 54 people for “defending or glorifying terrorism.” Those arrested include Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a comedian who has faced frequent accusations of anti-semitism.

Mr M’bala M’bala attended Sunday’s mammoth demonstration against extremism in Paris, but later posted a Facebook message saying: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” — a mixed reference to the targeted magazine and to Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a police officer last Thursday and then murdered four people at a Jewish supermarket on Friday.

He accused the Interior Minister of clamping down on the freedom of speech that Charlie Hebdo has come to represent, saying: “You con

sider me like Amedy Coulibaly when I am not any different from Charlie.”

The French government says it is preparing “tougher anti-terrorism measures” and some of those arrested on suspicion of glorifying terror have already been convicted, according to spokesman Stephane Le Foll.

One man arrested in the country’s north who defended the killings in a “drunken rant” has been slapped with a four-year prison sentence.

France announced today it would send aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to help battle Isis in Iraq.

France must resist authoritarian drift

FRENCH communists warned this week that the nation must resist a drift towards authoritarianism and intolerance following the Charlie Hebdo killings.

Communist Party (PCF) leader Pierre Laurent, who previously served as editor of socialist newspaper L’Humanite, slammed right-wing politicians for demonising Muslims and considering introducing “a Patriot Act in which the republic would lose its soul.”

He said: “To say that France is facing a war is extremely dangerous. It is to shut yourself in the trap set by the fundamentalists.

“They want confrontation — we want a society of freedom, progress and peace.”

He noted that the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement was “singing the chorus of the clash of civilisations,” that Prime Minister Manuel Valls of the ruling Socialist Party was railing against “the enemy within” and that the fascist National Front was calling for the restoration of the death penalty.

Division and hate were on the rise before the wave of terror hit France last week, he lamented.

“Look at the fence that surrounds a park bench, the boat migrants left abandoned, the refusal to bury a Roma baby.”

PCF anti-racism commissioner Fabienne Haloui noted: “Fear sets in among Jews, fear sets in among Muslims.

“The list of mosques under attack is growing every day. The horror of those bloody days should be a lesson against all forms of racism — Islamophobic, anti-semitic, racism against black people, against Roma.”