Hamza bin Laden, son of the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, is believed to be dead, three US officials said as quoted by US news agencies.
It’s unclear when and where Hamza bin Laden died, but a US military source told ABC News the US government believes he was killed within the last two years.
Hamza was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1989, according to the FBI, one of more than 20 children the elder bin Laden is believed to have had.
After the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of US Navy SEALs in Pakistan in 2011, Hamza bin Laden later emerged as a “key leader” in the terrorist organization, according to US officials.
In February the US State Department announced a $1 million reward for information leading to bin Laden’s capture and accused him of “threatening attacks against the United States in revenge for the May 2011 killing of his father by US military forces.”
Hamza bin Laden’s last known public statement was released by al Qaeda’s media arm in 2018. In that message, he threatened Saudi Arabia and called on the people of the Arabian peninsula to revolt.
Hamza bin Laden is believed to have been born around 1989.
His father moved to Afghanistan in 1996 and declared war against the US and Hamza went with him and appeared in al Qaeda propaganda videos.
As leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden oversaw operations against Western targets that culminated in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and on the Pentagon.
The US Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 during a raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound.
Hamza was not found at the compound.
Letters seized from the compound suggested the elder bin Laden wanted his son to join him in Abbottabad and was grooming him as a leader, according to NBC news report.
In a September 2017 article, counterterror expert and former FBI agent Ali Soufan said, “Hamza is being prepared for a leadership role in the organization his father founded” and is “likely to be perceived favorably by the jihadi rank-and-file, the report said.
