Hamza bin Laden | |
|---|---|
حمزة بن لادن | |
.png) Bin Laden in 2005 | |
| Born | Hamza bin Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1989-05-09)9 May 1989[1] Jeddah, Saudi Arabia |
| Died | 2019 (aged 29-30) |
| Spouse | Maryam bint Abdullah |
| Children | Osama |
| Parents |
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| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Al-Qaeda(Jama'at Ansar al-Furqan in Bilad al Sham) |
| Years of service | 2011–2019 |
| Battles / wars | |
Hamza bin Laden[a] (9 May 1989 – ?2019) was a Saudi-born key member ofal-Qaeda.[3] He was a son ofOsama bin Laden. On 14 September 2019, U.S. presidentDonald Trump announced that he was killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation on theAfghanistan–Pakistan border. In 2024, unconfirmed media reports claimed that he was still alive and a senior leader of al-Qaeda.[4][5]
Hamza bin Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born on 9 May 1989, inJeddah, Saudi Arabia.[6]
In January 2001, Hamza, his father and other family members attended the wedding of his brother Mohammed bin Laden in the southern Afghan city ofKandahar.[7] Video footage shot in theGhazni province in November of the same year shows Hamza bin Laden at age 12 and some of his siblings handling U.S. helicopter wreckage and working alongside theTaliban.[8][9]
In March 2003, it was claimed that Hamza bin Laden and his brotherSaad bin Laden had been wounded and captured inRobat, Afghanistan. This claim eventually proved false.[10] Actually, Hamza bin Laden, other bin Laden family members, and certain al-Qaeda leaders escaped toIran, where they were held in detention after the9/11 attacks.[11]
Bin Laden married a daughter ofAbdullah Ahmed Abdullah when he was 17 years old.[12]
In August 2018,The Guardian quoted bin Laden's uncles as saying he had married a daughter of 9/11 hijackerMohamed Atta.[13] However, Hamza's brotherOmar bin Laden denied the report.[14] Also, Mohamed Atta never married or had any children.
In a 2005 video titledTheMujahideen of Waziristan, Hamza bin Laden is shown participating in anal-Qaeda assault on Pakistani security forces in the southWaziristan tribal region between Afghanistan andPakistan.[15] In September 2007, it was reported that he was again in thetribal belt which encompasses the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region taking a senior role with al-Qaeda forces.[16][17] However, all of these reports have later been proven false, as Hamza was actually trapped in Iran from March 2002 at the age of 12 until July or August 2010 at the age of 21, when he was finally released into Pakistan. During most of this time, from December 2002 until his release, he was kept under prison-like conditions.[18]
In July 2008, a translation of a poem said to be written by bin Laden was made available, which had been published on an Islamic extremist website. In the poem bin Laden wrote "Accelerate the destruction of America, Britain, France and Denmark." In response, British MPPatrick Mercer dubbed Hamza bin Laden the "Crown Prince of Terror."[19]
Bin Laden was falsely implicated in the 2007assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.[20] However, according to an interrogation of former al-Qaeda spokesmanSulaiman Abu Ghaith, bin Laden was under house arrest inIran when Bhutto was assassinated and was not released until 2010,[21] when he and other bin Laden family members were freed in exchange for an Iranian diplomat held in Pakistan.[11]
After his release from Iran, Hamza stayed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa State in Pakistan but was not allowed to proceed to his father in Abbottabad. After his father's death on 2 May 2011, Hamza was brought to Qatar, where he remained for several years, studying Islamic religious texts, as his father had recommended. But the lure of following in his father's footsteps caused him to move back to Pakistan about 2015 to continue the struggle.[22]
On 14 August 2015, bin Laden released an audio message for the very first time. He called upon followers inKabul,Baghdad andGaza to wagejihad, or holy war, onWashington, D.C.,London,Paris andTel Aviv.[23]
It was reported on 11 May 2016 that bin Laden released an audio message focused on the issues ofPalestine and theSyrian Civil War. He said the "blessed Syrian revolution" had made the prospect of "liberating"Jerusalem more likely. "The Islamic umma (nation) should focus on jihad in al-Sham (Syria) … and unite the ranks ofmujahedin," he said. "There is no longer an excuse for those who insist on division and disputes now that the whole world has mobilised against Muslims."[24]
In July 2016, media reported that bin Laden had issued an audio message threatening theUnited States in revenge forhis father's death.[25][26] In the 21-minute speech entitled "We Are All Osama," he said "We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression." He continued, "As for the revenge by the Islamic nation forSheikh Osama, mayAllah have mercy on him, it is not revenge for Osama the person but it is revenge for those who defended Islam."[27] On 13 May 2017, a ten-minute video recording by Hamza bin Laden was published byAs-Sahab, encouraging terrorist attacks against Western targets.[28] Specifically, in this video Hamza called on the al Qaeda followers to carry outlone wolf attacks againstJews,Americans,Westerners andRussians with whatever means are available to them.[29] This is the last time that any material emerged showing that Hamza bin Laden was alive. It appears that the total of Hamza's activities as an adult on behalf of al-Qaeda consists only of his releasing his three audios and one video between 2015 and 2017. There is no evidence of his actually plotting any attacks, much less carrying any out, which shows how degraded al Qaeda's capabilities had become by this time.
It was rumored that bin Laden pledged allegiance toJama'at Ansar al-Furqan in Bilad al Sham in 2017.[30] In light of his supposed growing influence within al-Qaeda, the United States classified Hamza bin Laden as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in January 2017. This designation effectively put him on a blacklist which was aimed at restricting his movement and economic abilities.[31]
On 28 February 2019, theUnited States Department of State offered a reward of up to US$1 million for information leading to the identification or location in any country of bin Laden.[32][33]
The Kingdom ofSaudi Arabia announced on 1 March 2019 that it had revoked bin Laden's citizenship through a royal decree signed in November 2018.[34][35]
Hamza bin Laden was the son of Khairiah Sabir, one of Osama bin Laden's three wives who were living in theAbbottabad compound.[36]
Interrogation of the surviving wives ofOsama bin Laden by Pakistani intelligence after the raid on the Abbottabad compound revealed Hamza was the only person missing among those thought to be there. He was not among those killed or injured.[37] The raid conducted by theSEAL team was thorough: infrared technology, as well as ground troops, remained confident nobody inside the compound had escaped. There were no hidden exit tunnels from the compound.[38]
In a letter confiscated in the raid, written by Osama bin Laden and addressed to his "Chief of Staff"Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, bin Laden mentions his desire for his son Hamza to be educated inQatar as a religious scholar so that he could "refute the wrong and the suspicions raised around Jihad."[39] The same letter confirmed that Hamza was not present in Abbottabad at the time of the raid.[40][41] Letters from the compound also were alleged to show that Osama was apparently grooming his son to be his heir, following the death of Hamza's older brotherSaad bin Laden in a 2009 US drone strike.[42][43] However, this is completely refuted by Professor Nelly Lahoud in her careful analysis of the letters, in which it is shown that neither Osama bin Laden, nor his lieutenant Atiyah, nor even Hamza's mother Khairiah thought that Hamza was suitable for leadership nor for fighting, and they felt that he had been psychologically harmed by his long imprisonment in his adolescence in Iran. Being disappointed in his sons, by the time of his death Osama bin Laden was relying rather on his wives Khairiah and Siham and his daughters Maryam and Sumayyah, four women.[44]
On 31 July 2019,The New York Times and other news organizations quoted unnamed American officials as saying bin Laden would be killed in the first two years of theTrump Administration, which began on 20 January 2017.[45] At the time, intelligence agencies were unable to confirm his death and, in February 2019, the U.S. State Department issued a $1 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's whereabouts.[46] On 14 September 2019, U.S. PresidentDonald Trump confirmed that bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in theAfghanistan/Pakistan region.[47] Other details were not disclosed.[48]
Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary stated that bin Laden was most likely killed in the Geru district in theGhazni province ofAfghanistan.[49]
Maryam, Hamza bin Laden's widow and the daughter of the Egyptian high-ranking member of al-QaedaAbdullah Ahmed Abdullah (nom de guerre Abu Muhammed al-Masri), was killed in August 2020 inTehran, Iran alongside her father. This has been denied by Iran.[11][50][51]
In September 2024, the National Mobilization Front (NMF), a resistance group fighting against the Afghan Taliban,[52] claimed that bin Laden was still alive.[4][5][53] He allegedly moved to the Dara Abdullah Khel district inPanjshir, where he leads al-Qaeda in Afghanistan along with his brotherAbdullah, preparing attacks.[54][55]
Suudi Arabistan, el-Kaide'nin kurucularından Usame bin Ladin'in oğlu Suudi Arabistanlı Hamza bin Ladin'in vatandaşlıktan çıkarıldığını duyurdu.[Saudi Arabia announced that Saudi Arabian Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, has been stripped of his citizenship.]
Hamza bin Laden, the son of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, has released a new message offering "advice" for "martyrdom seekers in the West." Hamza encourages followers to lash out on their own, but only after carefully preparing their attack so they "may inflict damage far beyond anything the enemy has ever imagined."
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