The White House announced on Saturday that Hamza bin Laden, the late son of prominent al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who had become an increasingly prominent figure in the terrorist organization, was killed in a U.S. Counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
The White House officials from the United States Administration would not provide any additional information beyond the three-sentence statement. President Donald Trump’s issued statement confirmed his death but did not provide any further details such as how or when Hamza bin Laden was killed.
American officials have said that there are indications that the CIA, not the U.S. Military, conducted the strike, whether the agency involved declined to comment on it.
The statement from the White House said that the death of Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, deprives al-Qaida of an important symbolic connection to his father and undermines the group’s important operational activities. It also stated that Hamza bin Laden was responsible for dealing with and planning various terrorist activities with different groups.
It was my understanding that Laden bin Hamza was deceased, as Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told Fox News Channel in a late August interview to discuss intelligence matters, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He had not heard of this before and the U.S. Officials suspected that Laden bin Hamza was dead based on intelligence reports.
The official, who chose not to disclose the reason behind the U.S. Announcement of bin Laden’s demise with certainty, affirmed that confirming such a prominent death can be a time-consuming process. According to an undisclosed U.S. Official familiar with the case, bin Laden was eliminated within the last 18 months, as stated under the condition of anonymity regarding intelligence-gathering.
The death of Bin Laden leaves a challenge of finding a successor with the lion from the den of “al-Qaida”. In 2015, Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of the group and the eventual heir to the leadership of al-Qaida, had praised him as a lion appearing on jihadi websites. He had been viewed as the younger successor of bin Laden.
After his parents, Osama and Khairiah, it was reported that they had two children. They were named Osama and Khairiah, after his parents. According to the department’s notice, he was married to a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an al-Qaida leader and Egyptian accused of involvement in the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa. In February, the U.S. Government announced that it was providing a $1 million reward for assistance in locating Hamza bin Laden as part of the State Department’s Rewards for Justice initiative.
He was designated as a globally recognized terrorist in January 2017, and he had released video and audio messages calling for attacks against the United States and its allies. In one photo, he superimposed a childhood photo of himself over a photo of the World Trade Center, commemorating the 9/11 anniversary as a tribute to al-Qaida.
During his childhood, only past pictures depicted him. In the video released by the CIA in 2017, which was obtained during the 2011 U.S. Operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden appeared at his wedding sporting a neatly groomed mustache but no facial hair.
He fled to Sudan after declaring war against the U.S. In Afghanistan, later returning to Saudi Arabia after criticizing the kingdom for allowing U.S. Troops to deploy in the country during the Gulf War in 1991. It is believed that Hamza bin Laden was born in Afghanistan, where his father became known among the mujahedeen fighters after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
In 2011, the older bin Laden was assassinated in a raid on a residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs. The U.S. Incursion into Afghanistan was a result of the 2001 assaults against the United States that were planned and carried out by him and his accomplices. The attack on the USS Cole near Yemen, along with the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, were supervised by Osama bin Laden in his capacity as the leader of al-Qaida.
It was unclear at the time of the Saudi action where Osama bin Laden was, as he was living in exile in Sudan. In March of this year, Saudi Arabia announced that it had revoked Osama bin Laden’s citizenship, while he was just a child.
Hamza bin Laden started making appearances in extremist videos and recordings in 2015 as a spokesperson for al-Qaida.
If you believe that the crime you committed in Abbottabad is sinful, he said, “I thought wrong of you, and punishment has been passed without recording audio first.”
When Hamza was 12 years old, he saw his father for the last time, as he crossed into Pakistan, splitting from his family and escaping. The U.S.-Led invasion of Afghanistan sought to topple the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaida, and capture Osama bin Laden, the elder bin Laden. The U.S.-Led invasion of Afghanistan sought to topple the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaida, and capture Osama bin Laden, the elder bin Laden. The U.S.-Led invasion of Afghanistan sought to topple the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaida, and capture Osama bin Laden, the elder bin Laden. The U.S.-Led invasion of Afghanistan sought to topple the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaida, and capture Osama bin Laden, the elder bin Laden. The U.S.-Led invasion of Afghanistan sought to topple the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaida, and capture Osama bin Laden, the elder bin Laden.
“It felt like we extracted our livers and abandoned them there,” he wrote about the detachment.
During this period, Hamza tied the knot. Subsequently, Iran apprehended the al-Qaida individuals present within its borders. As per the assessments of experts and the examination of documents confiscated subsequent to the U.S. Raid resulting in Osama bin Laden’s demise, Hamza and his mother accompanied fellow al-Qaida members into Pakistan before seeking refuge in Iran, where additional al-Qaida commanders provided them shelter.
Hamza disappeared once again. Saber and the other wives were imprisoned, living in the house. On May 2, the Navy SEAL team raided Abbottabad, killing Osama bin Laden, as well as Khalid and his team. His mother left to join her husband in Abbottabad, according to a letter from the elder bin Laden. He went to the Waziristan province in Pakistan, where he asked for weapons training. In March 2010, Hamza and others were left in Iranian custody.
Since his first foreign trip as President, Donald Trump has been delivering speeches in Saudi Arabia, distancing himself from the war in Syria. In August 2015, a video emerged on jihadi websites featuring Hamza bin Laden, introducing him as “a lion” from the den of al-Qaida leader al-Zawahri, with messages that were prominently showcased.
Nevertheless, there has been no communication from him since a message in March 2018, wherein he issued menacing statements towards the rulers of Saudi Arabia.