Osama bin Laden's son Hamza, chosen heir to the leadership of Al-Qaeda, has been killed, US media reported on Wednesday, 31 July, citing American officials.
NBC News said three US officials had confirmed they had information of Hamza bin Laden's death, but gave no details of the place or date.
The New York Times subsequently cited two US officials saying they had confirmation that he was killed during the last two years in an operation that involved the United States.
Both reports suggested that bin Laden may have been killed well before the US State Department announced a $1 million bounty on his head in February 2019.
Sometimes dubbed the "crown prince of jihad, he had put out audio and video messages calling for attacks on the United States and other countries, especially to avenge his father's killing by US forces in Pakistan in May 2011, the department said.
Documents seized in the raid on his father's house in Abbottabad suggested Hamza was being groomed as heir to the Al-Qaeda leadership.
Hamza bin Laden's whereabouts have never been pinpointed. He was believed to have been under house arrest in Iran but reports suggest he also may have resided in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.
The group behind the deadly 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, Al-Qaeda's prominence as a radical Islamist group has faded over the past decade in the shadow of the Islamic State group.
But the proliferation of branches and associated jihadist groups in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere have underscored its continuing potency.
At his father's side in Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks, Hamza learnt how to handle weapons, and ranted in his thin voice against Americans, Jews and "Crusaders" in videos uploaded online.
"There is no longer an excuse for those who insist on division and disputes now that the whole world has mobilised against Muslims," he said.
In a later message that year he called on Saudi youth to overthrow the kingdom's rulers, telling them to enlist in the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to gain battlefield experience.
"With the Islamic State 'caliphate' apparently on the verge of collapse, Hamza is now the figure best placed to reunify the global jihadi movement," former FBI special agent and Al-Qaeda specialist Ali Soufan wrote at the time of his blacklisting.
(Published in an arrangement with PTI)
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