Osama bin Laden’s son is reportedly dead, having been killed in a military operation.
It’s not clear where or when it happened, but Hamza bin Laden, the would-be heir to al-Qaeda, is said to have died in an operation involving the United States, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The extent of America’s involvement, however, is not known.
Bin Laden had vowed to avenge his father and threatened to attack the United States numerous times. Much about the operation is secret, and President Trump declined to comment when asked for his thoughts on the news.
Few details released
The Times cited two American officials who gave little detail “because it involved sensitive operations and intelligence gathering.” But bin Laden was reportedly killed sometime after President Trump took office . The State Department announced a $1 million reward for bin Laden in February, but it appears he was already dead by then, perhaps unbeknownst to U.S. officials.
While Hamza was not the leader of the terror group, he was being groomed to succeed his father and, in 2015, was described by al-Qaeda as “a young lion to carry forth the cause.” Al-Qaeda stopped releasing regular messages from bin Laden months ago. In his last public statement in March, he threatened Saudi Arabia.
Former FBI agent and counterterrorism expert Ali Soufan, who wrote a profile of bin Laden in 2017, told the Times that bin Laden’s death, if true, “significantly damages Al Qaeda’s plans for moving to the second generation.” In his 2017 article, Soufan wrote that bin Laden is “likely to be perceived favorably by the jihadi rank and file. With the Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ apparently on the verge of collapse, Hamza is now the figure best placed to reunify the global jihadi movement.”
Al-Qaeda’s heir apparent
While ISIS has been decimated by the Trump administration, al-Qaeda has continued apace. Soufan told the Times that Hamza may have avoided publicly criticizing ISIS in case of an eventual re-unification with the al-Qaeda splinter group.
Bin Laden’s father was killed in a 2011 raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by Navy SEALs. Letters found there show that he wanted his son to eventually rise to the top of the terror group, NBC reported. Hamza was not there during the raid that ended his father’s life.
The CIA has killed two other sons of Osama, including one in the 2011 raid. After Osama’s death, top al-Qaeda operatives started grooming Hamza to take on a leadership role. Hamza reportedly worked closely with al-Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, whom U.S. intelligence is still working to isolate.
“This hurts the Al Qaeda brand,” according to Colin P. Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, a research organization for global security issues. “Even though he was unproven and untested, that name still means a lot to young jihadis.”
Hamza bin Laden reportedly fled to Iran after the September 11 attacks, where he was detained for some time. Other members of al-Qaeda also reportedly remained in Iran.
The State Department has recently asserted that Iran and al-Qaeda have disturbingly strong ties, as tensions have continued to escalate between Tehran and Washington over the past several months.
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