Al-Qaeda releases video of Osama bin Laden's son on 9/11 anniversary, 7 years after reported death

Al-Qaeda has to date not acknowledged Hamza bin Laden's death or issued the customary funeral eulogy it usually does after its leaders are killed.

Updated on: Sep 12, 2026, 08:16:07 IST

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The Al-Qaeda media wing As-Sahab on Friday released a video featuring the first-ever footage of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza, who was reported to have been killed seven years ago.

The video’s release came on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Hamza was seen as the designated heir to Osama before his reported death along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in a US operation in 2019. The outfit has to date not acknowledged his death or issued the customary funeral eulogy it usually does after its leaders are killed.

The 50-minute-long video titled "A Quarter Century of the 11 September Raids" also features unseen images of slain Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the . Sources quoted in the report said that the video aims to propagate the ideological doctrine associated with the current outfit chief, Saif al-Adl, with the Bin Laden name aimed at recruitment.

has not independently verified the video's authenticity.

What is in the video featuring Hamza bin Laden?

The reported video opens with historical footage from the September 2014 Al-Qaida attack on the Karachi naval dockyard in Pakistan. Intelligence sources quoted by said that the operation chosen to be shown in the video underscores the influence of Pakistani terrorists within both Al-Qaida's central leadership and its propaganda apparatus.

Hamza appears multiple times in the footage, seated against a stark, cracked mud wall, clad in a traditional white turban with an assault rifle propped beside him.

"The deliberate choice of staging serves a clear dual purpose: establishing Hamza's authority as his father's successor while invoking the classic visual identity of early global jihadism," quoted a source as saying.

Hamza bin Laden's reported death

Hamza bin Laden was reportedly killed during a US counterterrorism airstrike in early August 2019. His death was widely reported by the US media outlets, though the Pentagon did not confirm or deny those reports at the time.

The location or time of the operation was also unclear, though it was reported to have occurred somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Hamza Bin Laden was seen as an emerging leader of al-Qaeda. The reports said that he was killed in a military operation between 2017 and 2019. It must be noted, though, that the US government had offered $1 million for information leading to his capture as late as February 2019.

Some reports in 2025 had claimed that Hamza was alive.

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