Son and heir to al-Qaida founder is dead
WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden, who was viewed as an eventual heir to the leadership of al-Qaida and who had repeatedly threatened to attack the United States, is dead, according to two U.S. officials.
Details of the strike that killed him were scarce, including when and where. The U.S. government played a role in the operation, but it was not clear how, according to the officials, who discussed his death on the condition of anonymity because it involved sensitive operations and intelligence gathering.
Hamza bin Laden was killed sometime during the first two years of the Trump administration officials said. He was killed before the State Department announced a $1 million reward for information on his whereabouts in February, but U.S. military and intelligence agencies had not confirmed his death by then.
Though bin Laden carried a prominent name and lineage, the news of his death represented more of a symbolic victory for the U.S. government than the removal of a threat. Al-Qaida has not carried out a large-scale attack in years, and though bin Laden was being groomed to eventually take over the group, that time appeared to be well into the future.
After the 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in a SEAL Team 6 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, two of his top lieutenants began preparing Hamza bin Laden for a top leadership role. He married a daughter of one of them and pledged to avenge his father’s death.
Bin Laden was introduced as a voice of al-Qaida in August 2015 as “a young lion to carry forth the cause.” The regular messages alQaida released from bin Laden stopped months ago, although an article attributed to him was published in May.
Bin Laden was likely operating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Joscelyn said he doubted bin Laden was next in line to lead alQaida.
“They were building him up to potentially be the No. 1 someday; he was not thought of as the heir apparent today,” Joscelyn said.
President Donald Trump was asked Wednesday about the death, first reported by NBC News, but he declined to comment.
The location of bin Laden had been the subject of public speculation. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he and other members of alQaida fled to Iran, where they were detained. He was eventually allowed to leave Iran, then reportedly moved with his family to the Pakistan border region. At one point, intelligence showed he had traveled to Syria in the past several years, former officials have said.
The CIA has devastated al-Qaida, relentlessly targeting its operatives after 9/11. The agency killed another son, Saad bin Laden, in a drone strike in 2009 while he was operating in a remote area of Pakistan. Another son, Khalid, was killed in the 2011 Abbottabad raid.
The CIA continues to hunt for Ayman al-Zawahri, who assumed the al-Qaida leadership mantle after Osama bin Laden’s death.
Bin Laden appears to have worked closely with al-Zawahri, especially in maintaining ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan and shaping the organization’s message.
“If in fact he is dead, this makes the ranks of al-Qaida’s senior leadership that much thinner and the connection to Osama bin Laden even more attenuated,” said Nicholas J. Rasmussen, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Even had he taken over for his father to lead al-Qaida, Hamza bin Laden would have faced challenges as an untested leader. But his famous name would have been a boost to the terrorist organization.
“This hurts the al-Qaida brand,” said 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.”