Gun-wielding God on cover of satirical weekly

A person holds a placard reading, “I am Charlie” in Clermont-Ferrand, on January 7, 2015, during a rally in support of the victims of the attack by unknown gunmen on the offices of the satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo. Heavily armed gunmen massacred 12 people on Wednesday after bursting into the Paris offices of a satirical weekly that had long outraged Muslims with controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. AFP PHOTO THIERRY ZOCCOLAN

PARIS—French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo will mark a year since an attack on its offices with a cover featuring a bearded man representing God with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, accompanied by the text: “One year on: The assassin is still out there.”

One million copies of the special edition will be available on newsstands, with tens of thousands more to be dispatched overseas.

It will mark a year since brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi burst into Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris and killed 12 people, including eight of the magazine’s staff.

The Jan. 7, 2015, attack, claimed by al-Qaida’s branch in the Arabian Peninsula, came after a 2011 firebombing of its offices that forced it to move premises. Its staff had also been under police protection since it published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in 2006.

Cartoons of slain artists

Included in the special edition will be a collection of cartoons by the five Charlie Hebdo artists killed in the 2015 attack as well as several external contributors.

Cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau, who took over the management of the weekly after the attack, also penned an angry editorial in defense of secularism.

It denounces “fanatics brutalized by the Koran” as well as those from other religions who hoped for the death of the magazine for “daring to laugh at the religious.”

Sourisseau, known by the nickname Riss, was seriously wounded in last year’s attack.

Horror across world

A month before the attack, Charlie Hebdo was close to shutting down as sales had dipped below 30,000.

But the attack sparked horror across the world. Some 7.5 million people bought the first post-attacks issue and 200,000 people signed up for a subscription.

The Charlie Hebdo attacks were followed by a coordinated assault on multiple locations in Paris, claimed by the Islamic State group, which left 130 dead. AFP