The officials would not provide details of how Hamza bin Laden died or if the U.S. played a role. It is unclear if Washington has confirmed his death.
WASHINGTON — The United States has obtained
intelligence that the son and potential successor of al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden,
Hamza bin Laden, is dead, according to three U.S. officials.
The
officials would not provide details of where or when Hamza bin Laden
died or if the U.S. played a role in his death. It is unclear if the
U.S. has confirmed his death.
Asked
by reporters on Wednesday whether the U.S. had intelligence that Hamza
is dead, President Donald Trump said, "I don't want to comment on that."
Hamza bin Laden's last known public statement was released by al Qaeda's media arm in 2018. In that message, he threatened Saudi Arabia and called on the people of the Arabian peninsula to revolt.
Hamza
bin Laden is believed to have been born around 1989. His father moved
to Afghanistan in 1996 and declared war against the U.S. Hamza went with
him and appeared in al Qaeda propaganda videos. As leader of al Qaeda,
Osama bin Laden oversaw operations against Western targets that
culminated in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade
Center and on the Pentagon.
Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in 2011
during a raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound. Hamza was not found
at the compound. Letters seized from the compound suggested the elder
bin Laden wanted his son to join him in Abbottabad and was grooming him
as a leader.
In a September 2017 article, counterterror expert and former FBI agent Ali Soufan said, "Hamza is being prepared for a leadership role in the organization his father founded"
and is "likely to be perceived favorably by the jihadi rank-and-file.
With the Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ apparently on the verge of
collapse, Hamza is now the figure best placed to reunify the global
jihadi movement."
In February, the State Department announced it would pay as much as $1 million for information on Hamza bin Laden's whereabouts.
The
department's Rewards for Justice Program described the younger bin
Laden on Twitter as "an emerging al Qaeda leader" who "has threatened
attacks against the United States and allies."
***Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.