The U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday 14th September 2019 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.
President Trump had not publicly confirmed the news until Saturday, three days after the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaeda.
U.S. media had reported more than a month ago, citing intelligence sources, that the younger bin Laden had been killed sometime in the last two years in a military operation that involved the United States.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper last month said that it was “his understanding” that Bin Laden, who was thought to be about 30, was dead.
“Hamza bin Laden, the high-ranking Al-Qaeda member and son of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a United States counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region,” President 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 read but did not specify the time of the operation.
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 is believed that Hamza was married to a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, a high-ranking Al-Qaeda leader indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in 1998 over his role in the bombings that year of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, attacks directed by the senior Bin Laden.
Apparent Heir
Osama bin Laden’s death and the rise of the more lethal Islamic State group saw Al-Qaeda lose appeal with younger jihadists. But the proliferation of associated jihadist groups in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere has underscored its continuing influence.
In 2017, Hamza was placed on the U.S. terror blacklist, seen as a potent future figurehead for the group then led by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
