Hamza was the son of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and had been designated as his successor. The newly released footage shows Hamza in previously unseen material, raising questions among intelligence watchers about the timing and purpose of his appearance.
The nearly 50-minute video is titled “Twenty-Five Years of the September 11 Attacks.” It also contains previously unseen photographs of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the slain Al-Qaeda leader. According to reports, the organisation has so far neither acknowledged Zawahiri’s death nor issued its customary final tribute to him.
Hamza appears several times throughout the video. In the footage, he is shown sitting in front of a crumbling mud wall, wearing a traditional white turban, with an assault rifle placed beside him.
According to intelligence sources, the presentation appears designed to evoke Al-Qaeda’s ideological past. One source said Hamza’s portrayal appears to serve two purposes: establishing him as the successor to his father while also presenting the traditional visual identity associated with early global jihad.
The opening of the video is also notable. Rather than beginning with footage of an international operation, it opens with historical footage of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent’s attack on a naval dockyard in Karachi in September 2014.
The video seeks to promote the ideological thinking associated with Al-Qaeda’s current leader, Saif al-Adl. It also uses Osama bin Laden’s name as part of an effort aimed at recruitment.
The appearance of Hamza in newly released footage is particularly significant because reports in 2019 said he had been killed during a US counterterrorism operation near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. His inclusion in the latest As-Sahab release, alongside previously unseen images of Zawahiri, has therefore attracted the attention of intelligence experts examining the organisation’s messaging and propaganda efforts.
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