Bin Laden's Son Calls for Uprising against Saudi King

Rasa - The son of al-Qaeda's slain founder Osama bin Laden urged Saudis to "overthrow" the kingdom's "oppressive and tyrannical" rulers to free themselves of US influence.

News ID: 422776

Date: 18 August 2016 - 21:56

RNA‌ - In an audio message released by the militants' media outlet, Hamza bin Laden urged the Saudi tribes to join the Yemen-based al-Qaeda franchise to "gain the necessary experience" to "wage war" against the House of Saud, New Arab reported.

"There must be an uprising against the American agents, ... overthrow of the criminal ruling family, which has turned the Land of the Two Holy Mosques into a kingdom," bin Laden said.

"Change in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques will benefit the whole Islamic nation and bring it back to to its glorious past."

He added the Saudi military was "powerless" to confront Yemen's rebels and has resorted to bombing al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), despite the fact that the extremists are also targeting the Ansaullah.

Classified by the US as the network's deadliest franchise, AQAP was formed in January 2009 as a merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of al-Qaeda.

Yemen is the ancestral home of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan in 2011 by an elite team of US Navy SEALS after a decade on the run.

Hamza, 23, was the favourite son of the 9/11 mastermind, who had been grooming him to take over as al-Qaeda's leader.

"Hamza has been trying to exploit the symbolism his father to establish his presence in the media sphere as we have seen in his recent audio releases," The New Arab's correspondent Badr al-Rashid said.

"The relationship is unclear between him and al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri but it does not seem as though they are competing for power."

Last month, Hamza threatened to take revenge against the US for killing his father in another audio message posted online.

Saudi authorities in 1994 stripped Osama bin Laden of his nationality after he issued fatwas, denouncing both the royal family and the US.

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