Experts say Hamza bin Laden is a 'new face for al Qaeda' and 'an articulate and dangerous enemy'
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.
