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Hamza bin Laden, one ofOsama bin Laden‘s sons and a rising leader of the terror network al-Qaeda, has been killed,NBC NewsandThe New York Timesreported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials.
“Our best information is that Hamza bin Laden is dead,” an American government source tells PEOPLE.
This source did not discuss how or where Hamza died.
He was killed in a strike sometime in 2017 or 2018 though it took longer to confirm, according to theTimes. The U.S. had some involvement, theTimesreported, but the extent was not publicly known.
Hamza — born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1989 — was announced as an official al-Qaeda member in 2015 in an audio message that called for followers to launch attacks against the U.S. and its Western allies, according to the State Department.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program announceda $1 million reward in Februaryfor information leading to the identification or location of Hamza, who was referred to then as an emerging “key leader” of al-Qaeda.
Osama bin Laden.Getty
“They were building him up to potentially be the No. 1 someday; he was not thought of as the heir apparent today,” one expert told theTimesthis week.
Said another: “This hurts the al-Qaeda brand. Even though he was unproven and untested, that name still means a lot to young jihadis.”
Osama’s death came nearly a decade after al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people in a series of attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that targeted New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
At the time, the State Department made note of multiple instances in which Hamza issued messages that threatened violence against Americans, including a 2016 audio recording that said attacks would be revenge for his father’s death.
Other messages called on tribes based in Saudi Arabia to join forces with al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to wage war against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Ayman al-Zawahiri took over al-Qaeda after Osama, though the group’s threat has been drastically reduced since 2001 from intense American retaliation.
source: people.com
