This still image of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden's son Hamza bin Laden -- released by the CIA in November 2017 -- was taken from his wedding video, apparently filmed in Iran. AFP
US president Donald Trump on Saturday confirmed that Hamza bin Laden, the son and designated heir of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was killed in a counter-terrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
US media reported more than a month ago, citing intelligence officials, that the younger Bin Laden had been killed sometime in the last two years in an operation that involved the US.
Secretary of Defence Mark Esper said last month that it was “his understanding” that Bin Laden, who was thought to be about 30, was dead.
But Trump had not publicly confirmed the news until Saturday – three days after the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks by Al-Qaeda, and a week after Trump’s surprise announcement that a planned secret meeting with Taliban leaders at the Camp David presidential retreat had fallen through.
“Hamza bin Laden, the high-ranking al-Qaeda member and son of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a US counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region,” Trump said in a brief statement issued by the White House.
“The loss of Hamza bin Laden not only deprives al-Qaeda of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father but undermines important operational activities of the group.”
The statement did not specify the timing of the operation, how his long-rumoured death had been confirmed, or even specifically in which country it occurred.
Hamza, the 15th of Osama bin Laden’s 20 children and a son of his third wife, was “emerging as a leader in the Al-Qaeda franchise,” the State Department said in announcing a $1 million bounty on his head in February 2019.
It said Hamza was married to a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, a senior Al-Qaeda leader indicted by a US federal grand jury in 1998 for his role in the bombings that year of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya – attacks overseen by the senior Bin Laden.
Sometimes dubbed the “crown prince of jihad,” Hamza had issued calls for attacks on the US and other countries, especially to avenge his father’s killing by US forces in Pakistan in May 2011, the department said.
That work helped him attract a new generation of followers to the extremist group that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks, which left nearly 3,000 dead.
Al-Qaeda has yet to confirm the US announcement.
