TerrorismKilled: Hamza bin Laden, son and heir of Osama bin Laden

Published 1 August 2019

Hamza bin Laden, the son and heir of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, has been killed in a U.S.-supported operation, according to different media reports. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, on Wednesday confirmed the death of Hamza bin Laden, who was in his early 30s. The younger bin Laden had been killed within the past two years, in an operation in which the United States was involved in some capacity. U.S. refused to provide any details on the operation.

Hamza bin Laden, the son and heir of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, has been killed in a U.S.-supported operation, according to different media reports.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, on Wednesday confirmed the death of Hamza bin Laden, who was in his early 30s, first reported by NBC News.

The New York Times later reported the younger bin Laden had been killed within the past two years in an operation that involved the United States. Officials told the Times the government had yet formally to confirm his death and refused to share additional details.

The U.S. had been offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to the capture or death of Hamza bin Laden, who was by his father’s side when al-Qaeda launched the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks against New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Letters found at Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, show that Hamza bin Laden had been groomed from an early age to succeed his father as the leader of the terror group.

VOA News reports that the correspondences, captured by U.S. Special Forces soldiers during the May 2011 raid which killed Osama bin Laden, also show that the al-Qaeda founder was planning to have his son join him in Pakistan.

Notes from other senior leaders of Al-Qaeda, sent to the senior Bin Laden, show that these other leaders were worried that any attempt to smuggle Hamza bin Laden out of Iran and into Pakistan would be noticed, leading the United States to the senior Bin Laden’s hideout.

The Guardian reports that in recent years, Hamza bin Laden had been gaining more influence within al-Qaeda, first having been officially introduced to the terror group’s followers by current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in a 2015 audio recording.

The U.S. first designated Hamza bin Laden as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in January 2017.

In his most recent video, issued in March 2018, Hamza bin Laden picked up on one of his father’s favorite themes, denouncing the founders of Saudi Arabia’s current monarchy as traitors to Islam. He also blamed the kingdom’s close ties with the U.S. for the deaths of “hundreds of thousands” of Muslims.

Previously, Hamza bin Laden also issued calls for attacks on the United States to avenge his father’s death.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and counterterror expert, told VOA that the operation to kill Hamza bin Laden could have far-reaching implications.

“Hamza’s death will be a significant blow to al-Qaeda’s future plans on passing the leadership to the younger generation, and to reunifying the salafi-jihadi movement under another Bin Laden,” Soufan told VOA via email.

“There are probably other veteran al-Qaeda operatives ahead of him in the pecking order, so I doubt that he was next in the group’s line of succession,” Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA. “But there’s no question al-Qaeda groomed him to be a key leader, someone who could articulate his father’s conspiratorial worldview to a younger generation of jihadists.”

The death of Hamza bin Laden my make it more difficult for the group to compete with the Islamic State for followers and recruits.

“For al-Qaeda, this has left the group without a charismatic and recognizable voice, which may limit its presence on the global stage,” said Katherine Zimmerman, a research manager with the Critical Threats Project. 

“But the decapitation strategy does not end the threat al-Qaeda poses to the U.S.,” she added.

Earlier this week the UN released a report, based on the intelligence of member states, which said that terror groups aligned with al-Qaeda appear to be stronger than their IS-aligned rivals. But it also raised concerns about al-Qaeda’s central leadership.

“The immediate global threat posed by al-Qaeda remains unclear, with Aiman Muhammed Rabi al-Zawahiri (sic) reported to be in poor health and doubts as to how the group will manage the succession,” the UN report said.

Hamza bin Laden was married to the daughter of al-Qaeda senior leader Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah.

Abdullah was convicted in the United States for involvement in the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands of others.