United States offers $1m reward for Osama Bin Laden’s son Hamza

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, ARMENPRESS. The United States government is offering a reward of up to $1,000,000 for information about one of the sons of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Hamza Bin Laden is emerging as a leader of the Islamist militant group, according to US officials.

He is thought to be based near the Afghan-Pakistani border.

In recent years, he has released audio and video messages calling on followers to attack the US and its Western allies in revenge for his father's killing.

In 2011, US Special Forces killed Osama Bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

According to the US State Department Hamza married the daughter of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker and a mastermind of al-Qa’ida’s September 2001 airline terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Usama bin Laden’s letters seized from the Abbottabad, Pakistan compound where bin Laden was killed indicate that he was grooming Hamza to replace him as leader of al-Qa’ida, the State Department said.

"We do believe he's probably in the Afghan-Pakistan border [sic] and... he'll cross into Iran. But he could be anywhere though in... south central Asia," said Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Michael Evanoff.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan