A mysterious and menacing new figure in al Qaeda may be poised to become its leader. He’s young, angry, and hasn’t been seen since 9/11. It is Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, and he wants revenge on America.
Six years ago when Navy SEALs hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden, an unprecedented cache of documents were seized in bin Laden’s compound. A treasure trove, in the words of the U.S. government, including the personal correspondence of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda’s dangerous new strategy, and the story of a new bin Laden waiting in the wings.
The declassified documents include Osama bin Laden’s handwritten will, with instructions that holdings of “about 29 million dollars,” should be spent on “fighting in the cause of Allah,” and also letters between Hamza bin Laden and his father.
Before these documents were obtained, almost nothing was known about Hamza bin Laden. The few photographs and videos that do exist show him as a child, mostly featured in al Qaeda propaganda with his father. But they reveal a son eager to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I consider myself to be forged in steel,” he writes, “the path of jihad for the sake of God is what we live.”
Now believed to be about 28 years old, in January he was classified by the U.S. as a “specially designated global terrorist” — the same label once given to his father.
Hamza bin Laden also has recorded four audio messages, all in the last two years, that are similar to his famously charismatic father that could help Hamza unite and inspire the jihadi movement.
He has basically said to America and the American people, we’re coming and you’re gonna feel it. And we’re gonna take revenge for what you did to my father. We’re gonna revenge what you did in Iraq. We’re gonna revenge what you did in Afghanistan.
Although America killed Osama bin Laden, his message and his son, lives.