“With Hamza, AQ hopes to renew the popularity of AQ by reviving the brand of “AQ = Bin Laden”.
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Hamza Bin Laden, who is 23 or 24 years old and is thought to have been groomed by his 9/11 mastermind father, is believed to be speaking in the audio recording. This is the first time that Hamza Bin Laden is presented as an official member of Al Qaeda militant group.
Al-Qaida on Friday released an audio message that it claims was recorded by Hamza bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s many sons. It is unclear where Hamza was during that raid and his whereabouts since have been unknown.
Letters were found in Osama’s Abbottabad compound suggesting that Hamza was being trained to take the reigns of the terror outfit from his father.
In the message, which was shared on Twitter, he calls for lone wolf jihadist attacks on America and its allies and marks out London, Washington, Paris and Tel Aviv as specific targets.
The Al-Jazeera network broadcast footage that appeared to show him among Taliban fighters in Afghanistan during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Osama Bin Laden was killed in a raid on his compound in Abbotabad in 2011. In one of them, Hamza’s mother urged him to follow his “father’s footsteps.”
The extremist group’s “leadership wants Hamza as a future leader: someone loved & inspirational, without a negative reputation or participation in infighting”, she tweeted.
“Though Hamza bin Laden mentioned Jihadi fronts and leaders from around the world, no mention of ISIS and its leaders”, Katz said.
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The video has an introduction by current terror chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, reports terror intelligence group SITE.
