Osama bin Laden's son placed on America's terror blacklist
Friday, January 06, 2017
By David Alexander
Experts say Hamza bin Laden is a 'new face for al Qaeda' and 'an
articulate and dangerous enemy'
Bin Laden hoped his son Hamza would eventually succeed him
A son of late al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden and a leader of
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were added to the US counter-terrorism
blacklist on Thursday, a move to keep them from using the U.S. financial
system, the State Department said.
The State and Treasury departments said they had designated Hamza
bin Laden and Ibrahim al-Banna as global terrorists. Bin Laden, a son of the
deceased al-Qaeda leader, has been declared a member of the group by senior
leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to the State Department.
Bruce Reidel, an analyst with the Brookings Institution think tank
in Washington, has called Hamza bin Laden the "new face for al-Qaeda"
and "an articulate and dangerous enemy."
Al-Banna is a senior member of AQAP who has served as the group's
security chief and has provided military and security advice to AQAP leaders,
the State Department said.
The Treasury
Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control added Bin Laden and al-Banna to
its list of specially designated nationals, a counterterrorism blacklist. The
State Department said the two had been identified as specially designated
global terrorists.
Any property owned by the two men and subject to US jurisdiction
may be frozen and US citizens are prohibited from engaging in any transactions
with them, the State Department said. The designation is viewed as a powerful
tool to deny them access to the U.S. financial system.
Bin Laden, who was born in Saudi Arabia, has called for acts of
terrorism in western capitals and threatened to take revenge against the United
States for his father's killing, the State Department said.
He has threatened to target Americans abroad and urged Saudi
tribes to unite with AQAP in Yemen to fight against Saudi Arabia, it said.
Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces who raided his
compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. Hamza bin Laden was thought to
be under house arrest in Iran at the time, and documents recovered from the
compound indicated that aides had been trying to reunite him with his father.
Al-Banna, who was born in Egypt, has described al-Qaeda's Sept.
11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington as "virtuous" and
threatened to target Americans in the United States and abroad, the State
Department said.
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