Osama bin Laden’s ‘Prince of Terror’ son secretly builds al-Qaeda network of revenge groups

EXCLUSIVE: A fresh intelligence report reveals how al-Qaeda faked Osama bin Laden’s son’s death so he could secretly take over the terror dynasty and plan to wreak bloody mayhem

Slain terror mastermind Osama bin Laden’s eldest son has secretly built up a breathtaking network of killers across Asia and Africa after al-Qaeda feigned his death.

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Dubbed both the “Prince” and “Dauphin of terror” Hamza bin Laden, 37, was said by US President Donald Trump to have been killed in an airstrike in 2019 but his death, the Mirror can reveal, was faked by al-Qaeda.

And now the network that plotted the 9-11 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people and triggered America’s 20 year War on Terror, is emerging as just as dangerous. And the UK is firmly in its sights, because of its military partnership with the US, colonial past in the Middle East, links to Israel and its business ties all over the Gulf States.

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READ MORE: ’25 years after 9/11 saw UK join War on Terror our spies are still fighting every day in shadows’
Among the threats towards the west are mass casualty attacks, individual attacks, kidnappings, murder, sabotage and the targeting of politicians or other leaders.

A new and terrifying intelligence assessment given to the Mirror, which reveals the resurgence of the bin Laden terror dynasty, says: “The United Kingdom faces a convergent threat. Al-Qaeda retains a historic focus upon Britain as a military ally of the United States, whether under this current shaky U-turn government or otherwise.”

The report reveals how al-Qaeda conned the CIA into believing Hamza was dead because they knew they were being eavesdropped. In fact Hamza was groomed by former al-Qaeda head Ayman Zawahiri to take over and after a CIA-sponsored airstrike he told Hamza’s friends to report his death by telephone.

The ruse was helped by the “Haqqani Network,” a ruthless mafia clan known as “the Sopranos of Afghanistan ” which has huge influence within the Taliban.

Egyptian physician-turned-terror chief Zawahiri ordered Hamza’s associates to talk openly on the telephone about Hamza’s death, convincing listening spies the death was genuine.

When Zawahiri was then killed in an airstrike on a Kabul balcony in 2022, a year after Hamza’s false death, the bin Laden terror heir took the reins.

The assessment reveals how Hamza, lusting for revenge, has planted terror camps across Afghanistan and linked with the Iranian military, Hamas, Islamic State and dozens of others.

Even former British military HQ in Helmand Camp Bastion has been used as a training camp for various groups, including Hamas before it launched the October 7 attacks, the report suggests.

The emerging threat from al-Qaeda is said to be towards the UK and the US with “mass casualty” attacks, kidnappings and various forms of terror assaults.

It warns: “The overall assessment is that the strategic jihadist threat to the United Kingdom, continental Europe, the United States and allied interests has entered a renewed warning phase.” The assessment suggests Hamza’s network could facilitate widespread and deadly chaos across the west by tapping into al-Qaeda’s emerging network and adds:

“The resulting danger includes externally directed mass-casualty attacks, remotely enabled plots, attacks by inspired individuals, aviation and transport targeting, assaults on Jewish and Israeli interests.

The ongoing conflict in Gaza presents bin Laden’s son with an “opportunity” to mobilise support, the report says

It adds that also possible are “…political assassinations, hostage-taking, cyber-enabled facilitation and the exploitation of polarisation generated by the wars in Gaza and the wider Middle East.”

Emboldened by Hamza’s terrorist lineage al-Qaeda, the report explains, has extended the mythology of Osama beyond his assassination by US special forces in 2011.

It says: “Hamza bin Laden’s value to al-Qaeda is ideological, dynastic and operational. As a son of Osama bin Laden, he offers a direct line to the movement’s founding mythology. “His name can bridge the first generation of Arab-Afghan veterans, the post-Iraq and Syria generation, and younger recruits whose exposure to jihadism has occurred predominantly online.

“Before the reported counter-terrorism operation, Hamza had already been used to call for attacks against the United States and its allies, to encourage revenge for his father’s death and to present himself as an inheritor of al-Qaeda’s global cause.”

No body was produced after a counter-terror operation in September 2019 claimed to have killed him. And the report says: “Further intelligence and sources concluded that family telephone conversations were manipulated to reinforce intercepted reporting and that the result was Hamza’s removal from active targeting while he remained under protection…”

Hamza was then formally appointed al-Qaeda emir – chief – on November 14 2022 at the now rebuilt al-Farooq camp in Kandahar, which had been created by his father before being destroyed.

At the meeting were the Taliban, Haqqani, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and groups of African and Syrian representatives.

And the report concludes that Britain needs to be wary of the al-Qaeda threat, despite the gorup appearing to have gone quiet.

It says: “The core warning is that al-Qaeda should no longer be assessed as a defeated legacy organisation. It has retained patience, senior expertise, regional affiliates and a powerful brand. Taliban-controlled Afghanistan gives it strategic depth, while conflict in Gaza, state competition involving Iran, insecurity in the Sahel and online radicalisation provide opportunities for mobilisation.

“Hamza bin Laden’s reappearance, whether his role is principally operational or symbolic, can unify these strands. The absence of a successful strategic attack during an earlier forecast window does not remove the threat; it may reflect delay, disruption or deliberate patience.”

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