The White House on Saturday announced that a son of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden who had become an increasingly prominent figure in the terrorist organization was killed in a US counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
A statement issued in US President Donald Trump’s name gave no further details, such as when Hamza bin Laden was killed or how the US had confirmed his death.
Administration officials would provide no more information beyond the three-sentence statement from the White House.
Photo: CIA via AP
US officials have said there are indications that the CIA, not the US military, conducted the strike.
The CIA declined to comment on whether it was involved.
The White House statement said that Hamza bin Laden’s death “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 said that he was “responsible for planning and dealing with various terrorist groups.”
The US officials had said this summer that Hamza bin Laden was dead, citing intelligence reports and the fact that he had not been heard from in some time.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told Fox News Channel in an interview late last month that it was “my understanding” that Hamza bin Laden was dead.
A US official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity about intelligence-gathering said that he was killed in the past 18 months.
Confirming such a high-profile death can take a long time, said the official, who did not say what led the US to confirm the death.
The younger Bin Laden had been viewed as an eventual heir to the leadership of al-Qaeda.
The group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, had praised him in a 2015 video that appeared on jihadi Web sites, calling him a “lion from the den of al-Qaeda.”
Hamza bin Laden’s death leaves Zawahiri with the challenge of finding another successor.
The US government in February said it was offering US$1 million for help tracking down Hamza bin Laden as part of the US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program.
The department’s notice said he was married to a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an al-Qaeda leader and Egyptian charged for his role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa. They were said to have two children.
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