Yemen's al-Qaida branch claimed responsibility on Wednesday for last week's deadly attack on a Paris satirical weekly, with one of its top commanders saying the assault was in revenge for its publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, considered an insult in Islam.

The claim came in a video posting by Nasr al-Ansi, a top commander of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP as the branch is known, which appeared on the group's Twitter account.

In the 11-minute video, al-Ansi said the assault on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people - including editors, cartoonists and journalists, as well as two police officers - was in "revenge for the Prophet".