The Central Intelligence Agency released a video of Osama bin Laden’s son that has never been published before in a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid when bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. The public has only seen childhood pictures of Hamza bin Laden, but now it can see him as an adult. Al-Qaeda has released only audio messages from him in the past. It is expected that Hamza rises to prominence in the jihadist movement. He is being closely watched as the Islamic State suffers setbacks in the Middle East, Associated Press reports.
The video shows Hamza at his wedding, sitting on a carpet, whereas a man chanting Quranic verses can be heard in the background. This is the fourth trove of documents, images and computer files recovered during the raid when bin Laden was killed. Previously, documents were released in March 2015, March 2016 and in January this year.
According to the CIA, the additional 470,000 files offer insights into the inner Al-Qaeda cycle and details of the clashes with Daesh. They include details about the hardships that the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11 faced, when bin Laden’s died. A 228-page, handwritten personal journal of bin Laden and about 79,000 images and audio recordings are included in the files. Home videos and more than 10,000 video files were also released. The video of Hamza’s wedding is one of the released ones, but Osama bin Laden is not seen in it. One man notes that the “father of the groom, the prince of the mujahedeen” is overjoyed about his son’s marriage and his happiness will “spread to all the mujahedeen.”
Not all the materials have been released. According to the CIA, there are materials sensitive to national security, protected by copyright, pornography, malware and blank, corrupted and duplicate files.
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