Saudi Arabia has reportedly stripped Hamza bin Laden, the son of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, of his citizenship, in a move which occurred last November. However, there has been no explanation forthcoming as to why his citizenship was taken away, nor why this information is just now being released to the public.
As CBS News reports, the announcement that Saudia Arabia had revoked Hamza bin Laden’s citizenship came right on the heels of another proclamation. On Thursday, the U.S. government announced a reward of up to $1 million was being offered to anyone who had information on bin Laden’s current whereabouts.
Saudi Arabia also took away Osama bin Laden’s citizenship in 1994 while he was residing in Sudan when Hamza was still a very young child. As Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has noted, stripping Hamza of his citizenship should really come as no surprise to anybody. Hamza’s upbringing and adulthood were stepped in the culture of Al-Qaeda and might be a very real threat to the West, due to the culture he was entrenched in from birth.
“This is an example of history rhyming. He’s basically born right after al-Qaida is founded, so his life is totally consumed in the establishment, the formation of al-Qaida and the launching of its war against the West and America,” Joscelyn explained.
San Francisco News Saudi Arabia revokes Hamza bin Laden’s citizenship: “This is an example of history rhyming” – CBS News https://t.co/jGTeXplZrq pic.twitter.com/scnGslTHzc
— SanFrancisco NewsCh (@SanFrancisco_NC) March 2, 2019
The U.S. State Department has stated that Hamza bin Laden is now telling his followers that war must be waged against the United States and all of its allies in the West, and both audio and voice messages left by the now 30-year-old son of Osama have urged Al-Qaeda sympathizers to launch attacks on the West, in retaliation for the murder of his father in 2011.
The State Department has also suggested that bin Laden is now married to the daughter of Mohamed Atta — the head hijacker who was involved in the attacks orchestrated on September 11 — in a move which Guardian journalist Martin Chulov stated proves that “the 9/11 alumni remains very viable and very real even 17 years after the fact.”
Hamza bin Laden remained relatively quiet up until 2015 when he began showing up on terrorist videos and audio clips as a purported Al-Qaeda leader.
“If you think that your sinful crime that you committed in Abbottabad has passed without punishment, then you thought wrong,” Hamza declared in his first terroristic audio recording.
When the United Nations released a report on terrorism last year, they wrote that Hamza bin Laden “continued to emerge as a leadership figure in al-Qaida,” and that he was “reported to be in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas” at the time of the report.