US confirms Osama son killed on Af-Pak border

Washington, September 14 

US President Donald Trump on Saturday confirmed that Hamza bin Laden, the son of slain al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, was killed in an American counter-terrorism operation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The confirmation of Hamza’s death has come more than a month after the US media reported that he was killed, citing the US intelligence officials. “Hamza bin Laden, the high-ranking al-Qaida member and son of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a United States counter-terrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region,” Trump said in a statement. However, the US President did not specify the exact place where he was killed and under what circumstances.

“The loss of Hamza bin Laden not only deprives al-Qaida of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father, but undermines important operational activities of the group,” Trump said. “Hamza bin Laden was responsible for planning and dealing with various terrorist groups,” he added.

Hamza’s last known public statement was released by al-Qaida’s media arm in 2018. In that message he had threatened Saudi Arabia and called on the people of the Arabian peninsula to revolt. Saudi Arabia stripped him of citizenship in March this year. Reports about Hamza’s death, who according to The New York Times was not older than 30 years, first surfaced in late July and early August. Trump had then refused to confirm those reports. 

“I can’t comment about that. But he was very threatening to our country. He was saying very bad things about our country,” Trump said at the White House on August 1 when asked if the US had any role in Hamza's death. Osama was killed in a raid by the US Navy SEAL in Pakistan’s garrison city of Abbottabad in 2011. Hamza married the daughter of a senior al-Qaida leader who was charged by a federal jury for his role in August 1998 bombings on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.— PTI