Al-Qaeda group claims responsibility for Charlie Hebdo attack

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC7 I-Team goes inside the terror cell takedown and the violent end to France's worst week since World War II. We now know who claims to have been behind it and why.

The French brothers who began their terror siege this week were acting on orders from al Qaeda, the branch office in Yemen known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That same sect has directed unsuccessful bombing attempts on Chicago and Detroit and now the group claims to have ordered Wednesday's attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo where 12 people ended up dead.

French security teams blitzed this print shop north of Paris right after Charif and Said Kouachi came out the front door and opened fire. Authorities say they found the Kouachi brothers had automatic rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher- the weapon of choice for terrorists worldwide.

The brothers never fired their RPG and were killed by police. A lone hostage here was unharmed. Miles away, in a kosher grocery store east of Paris, an associate of the terrorist brothers took more than a dozen hostages. This gunman had killed a French policewoman on Thursday.

At the same time that the print shop was being stormed, police here assaulted the grocery store. The terrorist was taken out and a short time later the hostages released. Authorities now say four hostages had been killed earlier and a few minutes ago explosives were found rigged inside the store.

An announcement posted on YouTube Friday by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claims this week's French attacks were revenge for anti-Muslim cartoons published in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

What happened this week in France is reminiscent of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, a several day rampage by Pakistani terrorists also directed by an al Qaeda off-shoot, a raid planned by Chicago terrorist David Headley. Headley is now in prison here for his role in that attack and for a similar plot against a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons offensive to Muslims.

In Mumbai six years ago there were more than 170 people dead. The death toll from France this week was far less - 20 including the terrorists. But that may also reflect a change in al Qaeda tactics, from the spectacular attacks such as 9/11 that take years of operational planning, dozens of people and millions of dollars, to smaller scale strikes initiated by a few jihadists.