Washington : Fearful of his death in 2008, Osama bin Laden had big plans for his 22-year-old son Hamza whom he was grooming to take over his jihadist empire. In fact, Laden’s associates had even discussed arrangements for smuggling Hamza to Pakistan.
The declassified documents, which were seized from the Al-Qaeda’s leader’s Abottabad hideout, include two letters to Bin Laden from his son and one from Hamza’s mother imploring that he follow in his “father’s footsteps.”
The 22-year-old would-be-jihadist wrote to his reclusive father to say he was itching to join the fight. Hamza had trained with explosives and embraced the terror network that killed 3,000 Americans in the September 11, 2001 attacks
Speculation still swirls about where Hamza, dubbed the “crown prince of terror” by a British MP, was on the night his father died, and no proof has emerged that he was at the Abottabad compound.
He has not appeared publicly or made any public video statements in years, and his whereabouts remain a mystery, senior US intelligence officials said.
The documents depict a son describing himself as “forged in steel,” ready to join his father on a journey to “victory or martyrdom,” and a concerted effort by Al-Qaeda to smuggle the young man to his father’s hideout.
“What truly makes me sad is the mujahidin legions have marched and I have not joined them,” Hamza wrote to bin Laden in an eloquent letter in July 2009, when the son was under house arrest in Iran, according to an English translation provided by the CIA.
“I dread spending the rest of my young adulthood behind iron bars,” he added.
“My beloved father, I announce to you that I and everyone, God be praised, are following on the same path, the path of jihad.”
Hamza had not seen his fugitive father in eight years, and described the “pain of separation” he felt at age 13 and his hopes of a reunion as a young man of 22.
“You bid us farewell and we left, and it was as if we pulled out our livers and left them there,” he wrote.
After Hamza’s release from house arrest, top Al-Qaeda lieutenant Atiyah Abd al-Rahman wrote to bin Laden on April 5, 2011, one month before his death, detailing three possible ways to shepherd Hamza to his father.
The “least dangerous option” was sending him through Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, which borders Iran, to the teeming port city of Karachi, Abd al-Rahman said, writing under the pseudonym Mahmud.
Meanwhile, Abd al-Rahman arranged for Hamza “to attend a course on explosives,” he wrote.
As the plan emerged, Hamza’s brother Khalid wrote to say Hamza should use a fake ID and driver’s license to safely navigate Baluchistan.
Abd al-Rahman further wrote to Bin Laden promising to train Hamza in firing various weapons, adding that the young man was “very sweet and good.” — AFP
