White House Says Bin Laden Son Killed In U.S. Operation

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Sep 14, 2019 | 9:28 AM

FILE - In this image from video released by the CIA on Nov. 1, 2017, Hamza bin Laden is shown at his wedding. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden finds himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (CIA via AP, File)

(AP) – The White House says Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al-Qaida leader who had become an increasingly prominent figure in the terrorist organization, has been killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

A White House statement gives no further details, such as when Hamza bin Laden was killed or how the United States confirmed his death.

The statement says Hamza bin Laden’s death “not only deprives al-Qaida of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father, but undermines important operational activities of the group.”

As leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and others plotted the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. Navy SEALs killed him in a raid on a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.