Saudi Arabia strips Osama’s son of citizenship

BEIRUT: Saudi Arabia has stripped Hamza bin Laden, son of slain Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, of citizenship, the interior ministry said in a statement published by the official gazette.

Hamza, believed to be about 30 years old, was at his father’s side in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks and spent time with him in Pakistan after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan pushed much of Al Qaeda’s senior leadership there, according to the Brookings Institution.

Introduced by the organization’s new chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in an audio message in 2015, Hamza provides a younger voice for the group whose aging leaders have struggled to inspire militants around the world, galvanized by the Islamic State, analysts say. He has called for acts of terrorism in Western capitals and threatened to take revenge on the United States for his father’s killing, the State Department said in 2017 when it designated him as a global terrorist. He also threatened to target Americans abroad and urged Saudi tribes to unite with Yemen’s Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to fight against Saudi Arabia, it said.

The Saudi decision to strip him of his citizenship was made by a royal order in November, according to a statement published in the Um al-Qura official journal. The United States has offered a $1 million reward for information on Hamza, seeing him as an emerging face of extremism.

The location of Hamza, sometimes dubbed the "crown prince of jihad", has been the subject of speculation for years with reports of him living in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria or under house arrest in Iran. Hamza bin Laden is emerging as a leader in the AQ franchise, a State Department statement said, referring to Al Qaeda. The State Department said it would offer $1 million for information leading to his location in any country.

US intelligence agencies increasingly see the younger bin Laden as a successor to his father for the mantle of global jihad, especially as the even more extreme Islamic State group is down to its last sliver of land in Syria.

Osama bin Laden's three surviving wives and his children were quietly allowed to return to Saudi Arabia after his killing. But Hamza's whereabouts have been a matter of dispute. He is believed to have spent years along with his mother in Iran, despite Al Qaeda's strident denunciations of the Shiite branch of Islam that dominates the country.