[ 2011-05-11 ]

Hamza bin Laden, dubbed 'The Crown Prince of Terror' is thought to have escaped

Osama bin Laden dead: 'crown prince of terror disappeared' during raid
Three of bin Laden’s widows, currently in
Pakistani custody, have told interrogators that
one son has not been seen since the operation on
May 2.

The fresh details raise fears that the al-Qaeda
leader’s youngest son and closest confidante,
Hamza, may have escaped capture.

The White House initially claimed that Hamza, 20,
had been killed at the house in Abbottabad, about
30 miles from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

Officials later said his 22-year-old brother
Khalid had been killed instead.

Last night an intelligence source in Islamabad
told The Daily Telegraph that shifting accounts of
what had happened, coupled with the widows’
testimony, left them unable to account for one
person who they believe had been living at the
house.


“We don’t know if it was his son. Someone, one
person, may have been in the compound that we now
cannot account for if - we believe what we are
being told,” he said.

Bin Laden, who was married five times, had as many
as 24 children.

No one knows for certain who was in the compound
where bin Laden had lived, hidden in plain sight,
for five years.

Hamza’s mother Khairiah Sabar has been widely
reported to be among the family members in
Pakistani custody.

Thought to be the youngest of the Saudi-born
terror leader’s sons, Hamza has been described
as the “crown prince of terror” by Patrick
Mercer, a conservative MP.

He featured on an extremist website to mark the
third anniversary of the July 7 London bombings in
which 52 people died. He read a poem called for
“destruction” of America, Britain, France and
Denmark.

Intelligence agencies believe he was being groomed
as a possible future leader of al-Qaeda, and he
was implicated in the assassination of moderate
Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
More than a week after the wives - along with 12
children - were picked up at the bin Laden
compound in Abbottabad, CIA interrogators have
still not been given the chance to question them
for crucial evidence.

US officials said they believe they will soon be
allowed access to the women being held by Pakistan
security.

However, a Pakistani government official denied
that permission had been granted, saying local
investigators had yet to finish their inquiry.
“It’s too early to even think about it,”
said the official.

Amid rising tensions between Islamabad and
Washington over the secret raid, US officials have
blamed the ISI, the Pakistani secret service, for
leaking the name of the CIA station chief in
Islamabad in retaliation.

They however said that the agency veteran, who
spends the vast majority of his time in the US
embassy compound, would not be withdrawn from the
country.

It also emerged that the US Navy Seals who killed
bin Laden had permission to fight their way out of
trouble and kill Pakistani forces if they were
challenged during the operation.

It was decided that the team sent to raid the
terror leader’s compound should be large enough
to resist any Pakistani forces that reacted to the
night time operation, after President Barack Obama
reportedly raised the prospect of a clash. As a
result, two extra helicopters were deployed to
protect the assault team.

“Their instructions were to avoid any
confrontation if at all possible. But if they had
to return fire to get out, they were authorized to
do it,” a senior US administration official told
the New York Times.

“Some people may have assumed we could talk our
way out of a jam, but given our difficult
relationship with Pakistan right now, the
president did not want to leave anything to
chance.

Source - The Telegraph

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