Considered the heir to Osama Bin Laden at the head of Al Qaeda, the thirty-year-old would have died after a US operation targeting him, according to US media.
Hamza Bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s sons, who was presented as his heir to al-Qaida , died after a US operation to eliminate him, according to reports from the New York Times and of the NBC channel Wednesday, July 31, 2019.
The New York Times claims that the United States “had a role” in the operation in which Hamza bin Laden, considered a key al-Qaida leader , was killed. The daily, quoting two US officials, said he had not had access to other details on this operation.
The first media to reveal this possible elimination, NBC had said earlier that Washington had information intelligence information attesting the death of Hamza bin Laden, relying on three anonymous officials.
“I do not want to comment on that,” President Donald Trump twice told reporters on Wednesday about NBC news.
Both media do not have details about the date, place or circumstances of death. According to the New York Times, he has intervened in the last two years, but the Americans have been slow to confirm.
Favorite son
Hamza Bin Laden is considered the favourite son – or even the successor – of Osama Bin Laden, the founder of the network that launched the attacks of September 11, 2001. The young man in his thirties is on the list. black American people accused of “terrorism”.
Washington offered in February a reward of up to $ 1 million for any information to find it.
The UN sanctions committee against the Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaeda had for its part added the name “Hamza Osama Muhammad Bin Laden”, born May 9, 1989 in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), at the list of persons subject to an international freeze on their assets and to a travel ban.
“He was designated” (in August 2015) by current al-Qaida leader, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, “as an official al-Qaida member” and “is considered his most likely successor. Added the UN, also in February of this year.
Hamza Bin Laden is often considered the “crown prince of jihad”. Documents, including letters revealed by AFP in May 2015, show that Osama Bin Laden intended him to succeed him as head of the global anti-Western jihad.
Fifteen of the twenty or so children of Usama Bin Laden , son of his third wife, Hamza has been since his childhood prepared to follow his steps. At his side in Afghanistan before 9/11, he learned how to handle weapons, and was seen to vituperate in his thin voice the Americans, Jews and “Crusaders” in videos posted online
Among the jihadist leader’s archives seized during the 2011 US raid in which he was killed in Pakistan, and unveiled at the end of 2017 by the CIA, is a video of Hamza’s marriage, apparently in Iran, which was discovered the first images in adulthood.
Hamza Bin Laden was deposed in March of his Saudi nationality.
Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Intelligence Group, a group specializing in surveillance of jihadist movements, said on Wednesday that al-Qaeda had not yet “commented or confirmed” information on Hamza Bin Laden’s death. .
