Syrian President Bashar Assad said Western "shortsightedness" and "support for terrorism" in the revolt against his rule were to blame for last week's attacks in Paris, state media reported Wednesday.

In his first reaction to the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket which killed 17 people, Assad said he had repeatedly warned Western governments that their support for rebel groups in Syria risked a blowback of violence at home.

A Singaporean navy ship on Wednesday located the main body of the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea late last month, raising hopes that bodies of most of the 162 victims will now be found.

Underwater photos showed the cracked fuselage and part of a wing of Flight QZ8501, that went down on December 28 in stormy weather during a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Leading Islamic authority Al-Azhar urged Muslims to "ignore" the publication of a new Prophet Mohamed cartoon by French magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday, saying his stature was too lofty to be harmed by cartoons.

The first issue of the satirical magazine to be published since a jihadist attack decimated its staff last week was sold out within minutes at kiosks across France on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet French President Francois Hollande on Friday to discuss the jihadist attacks that left 17 people dead last week in France.

The United States faced criticism after it failed to send a senior official to the massive rally in Paris on Sunday attended by dozens of world leaders condemning the bloodshed.

The army denied on Wednesday a report saying that the military received weapons under two grants by Saudi Arabia that are below the standards.

“The report is completely false,” the army command said in a communique.

Canada arrested three men on terrorism-related charges in as many days because they represented a "serious" potential threat, the country's top public safety official said Tuesday.

"If accusations are laid, it's because there's a serious reason to believe they are potential terrorists," Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney told CBC television.

Troops marching through Jewish districts and foreign legionnaires patrolling grimly under the arches of the Eiffel Tower -- Paris is witnessing a rare deployment of armed forces on home soil after last week's terror attacks.

In the Marais district in central Paris -- home to many Jewish homes, restaurants and businesses -- the road appeared calm on Tuesday.

France's biggest satirical weekly, "Le Canard Enchaine" said it received a gruesome death threat the day after Islamist gunmen shot dead 12 people in an attack against Charlie Hebdo magazine.

Le Canard Enchaine says in its edition being released Wednesday that an email sent to the paper on January 8 warned "It's your turn" and threatened to slash its journalists to pieces "with an axe".

The former Islamist mentor of Cherif Kouachi, one of the gunmen who killed 12 people at France's Charlie Hebdo magazine, has described it as "the worst crime a Muslim could commit."

Farid Benyettou, a 33-year-old who says he has left behind his radical past, also revealed that when he had seen Kouachi two months ago "the only thing he wanted to talk about was fighting."

Bestselling French novelist Michel Houellebecq will promote his new book imagining a France under Islamic rule next week in Germany after suspending a French tour in the wake of the Paris attacks, his publisher said Tuesday.

He is to present the book, whose German translation will hit bookstores Friday, in the western city of Cologne Monday, French publishing house Flammarion told Agence France-Presse.