Washington, DC: A video released by al-Qaeda on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has raised serious questions on claims by the US of neutralising Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden and the outfit’s former chief Ayman Al Zawahiri.
The 50-minute propaganda video features Hamza, who the US claimed to have killed in an operation along the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2019.
The video, released by As-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s official media wing, to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, is titled “A Quarter Century of the 11 September Raids”.
It features multiple appearances by Hamza and also contains previously unseen images of Zawahiri.
While the US claimed to have killed him, al-Qaeda has never acknowledged Zawahiri’s death or released its customary funeral eulogy for him, according to reports.
In the footage, Hamza is shown seated against a cracked mud wall, wearing a traditional white turban, with an assault rifle positioned beside him. This marks the first-ever reported video showing him, as reported by News18.
The video seeks to promote the ideological doctrine associated with current al-Qaeda chief Saif al-Adl, while invoking the Bin Laden name as part of its recruitment messaging.
The video also opens with a focus on a regional operation rather than one of al-Qaeda’s international attacks. Its opening footage comes from the September 2014 al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) attack on the Karachi naval dockyard.
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four passenger aircraft in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center, bringing down the Twin Towers. A third aircraft struck the Pentagon, while a fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back.
The attacks killed 2,977 people and dramatically altered the global security landscape.
On Friday, the US commemorated the 25th anniversary, with president Donald Trump attending a ceremony at the Pentagon rather than the main remembrance event in New York.