DUBAI: The new audio message by Hamza bin Laden, son of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was released 11 days after the fifth anniversary of the latter’s assassination in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011. The new message did not mention the anniversary, but offered “advice” for “martyrdom-seekers in the West.”
Hamza encouraged Al-Qaeda followers to launch attacks on their own and “inflict damage far beyond anything the enemy has ever imagined.” The audio message came a few days after a video message by Qasim Al-Raymi, head of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who also encouraged Al-Qaeda followers in the West to carry out “lone jihad” attacks.
It was AQAP that first launched “lone wolf” attacks, when Maj. Nidal Hasan of the US Army killed 13 people at a military base in Texas in 2009. But Daesh has been more successful in this regard. The messages from Al-Raymi and Hamza are most likely part of Al-Qaeda’s efforts to regain what it has lost to Daesh.
It is clear from the messages released by Al-Qaeda in the past two years that it is trying to protect and preserve the legacy of Osama bin Laden amid the rise of Daesh.
Al-Qaeda has been greatly weakened financially and operationally over the past 15 years, due to global initiatives against terror financing and unabated attacks against its leaders, mainly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.
The killing of Osama bin Laden struck a sharp blow to the organization’s internal structure. It is believed that Al-Qaeda today is more de-centralized. Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s lackluster persona as the current leader and his constant hiding has added to the group’s weakness.
Its branches and offshoots today are caught up in their local agendas beyond Al-Zawahiri’s influence, as seen in the Nusra Front in Syria splitting from Al-Qaeda and claiming to be a local, independent body with the same ideology. AQAP is focusing on Yemen, though it has planned attacks in the West, including the US and France.
In most of Hamza’s audio messages, he refers to Al-Zawahiri as his “emir” (leader), implying that Al-Zawahiri is a legitimate heir to his father’s legacy and that all Al-Qaeda branches should view him as such. Hamza’s audio messages are likely to have had Al-Zawahiri’s consent, which indicates that the former is still under the latter’s shadow. It is more about giving Al-Zawahiri the power he needs than preparing Hamza as the next leader of Al-Qaeda.
Hamza has released many audio messages since 2015. In most of them, he appeared very similar to his father in terms of the issues he addressed and the way he spoke, using the same tone and phrases. Although Hamza was kept very close by his father, perhaps preparing him to carry on his mission, being his son is not enough to include him in the line of contenders if Al-Zawahiri dies; other senior Al-Qaeda members are already in line.
Is Hamza bin Laden Al-Qaeda’s next leader?
Is Hamza bin Laden Al-Qaeda’s next leader?
Father in intensive care after nine children killed in Israeli strike on Gaza
Hamdi Al-Najjar, himself a doctor, was at home in Khan Younis with his 10 children when an Israeli air strike occurred, killing all but one of them. He was rushed to the nearby Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza where he is being treated for his injuries.
Abdul Aziz Al-Farra, a thoracic surgeon, said Najjar had undergone two operations to stop bleeding in his abdomen and chest and that he sustained other wounds including to his head.
“May God heal him and help him,” Farra said, speaking by the bedside of an intubated and heavily bandaged Najjar.
The Israeli military has confirmed it conducted an air strike on Khan Younis on Friday but said it was targeting suspects in a structure that was close to Israeli soldiers.
The military is looking into claims that “uninvolved civilians” were killed, it said, adding that the military had evacuated civilians from the area before the operation began.
According to medical officials in Gaza, the nine children were aged between one and 12 years old. The child that survived, a boy, is in a serious but stable condition, the hospital has said.
Najjar’s wife, Alaa, also a doctor, was not at home at the time of the strike. She was treating Palestinians injured in Israel’s more than 20-month war in Gaza against Hamas in the same hospital where her husband and son are receiving care.
“She went to her house and saw her children burned, may God help her,” said Tahani Yahya Al-Najjar of her sister-in-law.
“With everything we are going through only God gives us strength.”
Tahani visited her brother in hospital on Sunday, whispering to him that she was there: “You are okay, this will pass.”
On Saturday, Ali Al-Najjar said that he rushed to his brother’s house after the strike, which had sparked a fire that threatened to collapse the home, and searched through the rubble. “We started pulling out charred bodies,” he said.
In its statement about the air strike, the Israeli military said Khan Younis was a “dangerous war zone.”
Practically all of Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians have been displaced after more than 20 months of war.
The war erupted when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 more.
The retaliatory campaign, that Israel has said is aimed at uprooting Hamas and securing the release of the hostages, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, Gazan health officials say.
Most of them are civilians, including more than 16,500 children under the age of 18, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Iraq’s water reserves lowest in 80 years: official
- Iraqi spokesperson of the Water Resources Ministry Khaled Shamal says the country hasn't seen such a low reserve in 80 years
- Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five most impacted countries by climate change
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s water reserves are at their lowest in 80 years after a dry rainy season, a government official said Sunday, as its share from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers shrinks.
Water is a major issue in the country of 46 million people undergoing a serious environmental crisis because of climate change, drought, rising temperatures and declining rainfall.
Authorities also blame upstream dams built in neighboring Iran and Turkiye for dramatically lowering the flow of the once-mighty Tigris and Euphrates, which have irrigated Iraq for millennia.
“The summer season should begin with at least 18 billion cubic meters... yet we only have about 10 billion cubic meters,” water resources ministry spokesperson Khaled Shamal told AFP.
“Last year our strategic reserves were better. It was double what we have now,” Shamal said.
“We haven’t seen such a low reserve in 80 years,” he added, saying this was mostly due to the reduced flow from the two rivers.
Iraq currently receives less than 40 percent of its share from the Tigris and Euphrates, according to Shamal.
He said sparse rainfall this winter and low water levels from melting snow has worsened the situation in Iraq, considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
Water shortages have forced many farmers in Iraq to abandon the land, and authorities have drastically reduced farming activity to ensure sufficient supplies of drinking water.
Agricultural planning in Iraq always depends on water, and this year it aims to preserve “green spaces and productive areas” amounting to more than 1.5 million Iraqi dunams (375,000 hectares), said Shamal.
Last year, authorities allowed farmers to cultivate 2.5 million dunams of corn, rice, and orchards, according to the water ministry.
Water has been a source of tension between Iraq and Turkiye, which has urged Baghdad to adopt efficient water management plans.
In 2024, Iraq and Turkiye signed a 10-year “framework agreement,” mostly to invest in projects to ensure better water resources management.
Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza, including a journalist and rescue service official
- Israeli fire kills at least 23 people in Gaza
- Israel controls 77 percent of Gaza Strip, Hamas media office says
CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a local journalist and a senior rescue service official, local health authorities said.
The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another airstrike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
In a separate statement, the media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 percent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardment that keeps residents away from their homes.
The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said in separate statements on Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza.
On Friday the Israeli military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza.
The conflict has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.
Israeli military says it intercepted missile from Yemen
- Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Sirens sounded in several areas in the country, the Israeli military said earlier.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Most of the group’s missile have been intercepted or have fallen short.
The Houthis did not immediately comment on the latest missile launch.
Syria to help locate missing Americans
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities have agreed to help the United States locate and return Americans who went missing in the war-torn country, a US envoy said on Sunday.
“The new Syrian government has agreed to assist the USA in locating and returning USA citizens or their remains. The families of Austin Tice, Majd Kamalmaz, and Kayla Mueller must have closure,” US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack wrote on X.
