A new intelligence assessment alleges Hamza bin Laden, declared killed in a 2019 airstrike, is alive, has taken command of al-Qaeda, and is actively planning attacks against Western targets.
The 37-year-old son of the man who orchestrated the September 11 attacks allegedly deceived the CIA with help from al-Qaeda leadership and the Haqqani Network, a powerful militant faction that exercises enormous influence inside the Taliban. The Daily Mail reported on the intelligence document, which claims Hamza's associates deliberately spoke openly on monitored phone lines about his death, feeding false information to American intelligence agencies that were listening in.
No body was ever produced after the counter-terrorism operation in September 2019. Donald Trump stated at the time that Hamza had been killed in an airstrike. The intelligence assessment now alleges the entire episode was a ruse, one designed by al-Qaeda's then-chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who understood that the CIA was intercepting communications and used that knowledge to stage a deception.
If the assessment is accurate, it represents one of the most consequential intelligence failures since the collapse of Afghanistan, and a direct threat to American and allied security that went undetected for years.
The intelligence document claims Hamza bin Laden was formally appointed as al-Qaeda's emir, its supreme leader, on November 14, 2022, at the al-Farooq camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan. That camp was originally built by Osama bin Laden before being destroyed. Hamza reportedly rebuilt it.
The appointment came months after Zawahiri was killed in a CIA airstrike that struck a balcony in Kabul in 2022. Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician turned militant leader, had groomed Hamza for succession. With Zawahiri gone, the assessment alleges Hamza stepped into the role that had been prepared for him, surrounded by Taliban officials, Haqqani Network operatives, representatives of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, and delegates from African and Syrian militant groups.
The assessment describes Hamza's value to al-Qaeda in blunt terms:
"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."
Before the reported counter-terrorism operation, Hamza had already called publicly for attacks against the United States and its allies, encouraged revenge for his father's killing by U.S. special forces in 2011, and positioned himself as the inheritor of al-Qaeda's global mission. The assessment states that his reappearance, "whether principally operational or symbolic", can unify the organization's scattered affiliates.
The mechanics of the alleged ruse center on al-Qaeda's awareness that American intelligence was monitoring its communications. Zawahiri instructed Hamza's associates to discuss his death openly on phone lines they knew were being intercepted. The intelligence document states 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."
In plain terms: al-Qaeda allegedly fed the CIA exactly what it wanted to hear, and American intelligence accepted it. Hamza dropped off the targeting list. He stayed alive. And he spent the next several years building what the assessment describes as a network of operatives across Asia and Africa.
The assessment does not name the agency or organization that produced it, and its authorship remains unclear. That gap matters. An intelligence document making claims this significant, that a declared-dead terrorist is alive and leading a global network, demands scrutiny of who wrote it, what evidence underpins it, and whether allied intelligence services corroborate its conclusions. None of those questions are answered in the available reporting.
Threats against high-profile figures, whether political leaders or declared combatants, are notoriously difficult to verify. The challenge of confirming life-or-death claims in hostile territory is one reason the U.S. government has faced repeated questions about its intelligence operations, from the Iranian death threats Trump has publicly confronted to the broader difficulty of separating fact from disinformation in conflict zones.
One of the assessment's most striking claims involves Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, formerly the main British military headquarters in Afghanistan. The document alleges the facility was converted into a training camp used by multiple militant groups, and that Hamas trained there before the October 7 attacks on Israel.
The claim, if substantiated, would draw a direct operational line between Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the deadliest attack on Israeli soil in decades. But the assessment does not provide the specific evidence supporting this allegation, and no independent confirmation appears in the available reporting.
The document also alleges Hamza has linked up with the Iranian military, the Islamic State, and other militant organizations, a coalition of groups that have historically been rivals or outright enemies. The nature of Hamza's alleged relationship with Iran, whether operational, financial, or logistical, is not specified.
The U.S. military's ongoing counter-terrorism operations continue in other theaters. American forces recently struck a drug trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific, a reminder that military assets remain deployed against transnational threats even as questions mount about what was missed in Afghanistan.
The intelligence document does not hold back about the threat level it assigns to al-Qaeda under Hamza's alleged leadership. It states that "the strategic jihadist threat to the UK, continental Europe, the US and allied interests has entered a renewed warning phase."
The list of potential attack methods is extensive: "externally directed mass-casualty attacks, remotely enabled plots, attacks by inspired individuals, aviation and transport targeting, assaults on Jewish and Israeli interests." The document also warns of kidnappings, political assassinations, hostage-taking, cyber-enabled operations, and the exploitation of polarization created by the conflicts in Gaza and the broader Middle East.
Britain comes in for particular attention. The assessment states:
"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 shaky U-turn government or otherwise."
The document's core warning is direct: "Al-Qaeda should no longer be assessed as a defeated legacy organisation." It argues the network "has retained patience, senior expertise, regional affiliates and a powerful brand," and that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provides it with strategic depth. Instability in the Sahel, conflict in Gaza, Iranian competition, and online radicalization all create what the assessment calls "opportunities for mobilisation."
The security implications extend well beyond any single country. Threats against Western leaders and institutions have grown more brazen in recent years, as illustrated by incidents like the armed suspect apprehended at Trump's golf course who was found carrying sensitive scheduling information.
For all its alarming claims, the intelligence document raises as many questions as it answers. The authoring agency is not identified. The date of the assessment's release is not stated. The evidentiary basis for concluding Hamza is alive, beyond the telephone intercept manipulation, is not laid out in the available reporting.
No specific attacks have been attributed to Hamza's network since his alleged reemergence. His current whereabouts are unknown. The identities of the African and Syrian representatives who allegedly attended his appointment ceremony in Kandahar are not disclosed.
These gaps do not necessarily discredit the assessment. Intelligence documents routinely withhold sourcing details to protect methods and assets. But they do mean that the public, and policymakers, are being asked to accept an extraordinary claim on the basis of a document whose provenance and supporting evidence remain opaque.
America spent twenty years and untold billions on a war against terror that began when Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda killed 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. If his eldest son has been alive this entire time, rebuilding the same network from the same Afghan soil, the question is not just whether Western intelligence was deceived. It is whether anyone in a position of authority is prepared to admit how much ground was lost, and what it will cost to recover it.
Twenty years of war, a trillion dollars spent, and the founder's own son may have simply waited everyone out. If that does not concentrate minds in Washington and London, nothing will.
