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Osama bin Laden's Son Hamza Calls for Jihadi Unity in Syria

Rallying around the fight in Syria, the young bin Laden said, would eventually pave the way for a collective battle to remove Israel from Palestine.
Foto via YouTube

Osama bin Laden's son Hamza has released an undated audio message urging militant jihadists worldwide to come together and concentrate on the civil war in Syria with a view to eventually take the fight to Jerusalem.

"The Islamic umma [community] should focus on jihad in al-Sham [Syria] … and unite the ranks of mujahideen there," Hamza bin Laden says the message, which was posted online. "There is no longer an excuse for those who insist on division and disputes now that the whole world has mobilized against Muslims."

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Rallying around the fight in Syria would ultimately lead to a collective battle to remove Israel from Palestine, said the young bin Laden, who is believed to be 23 or 24 years old.

"Jerusalem is a bride whose blood is our dowry," he decalres in the message, which contains extended musings on the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Muslims everywhere, Hamza says, are obliged to "participate in our Palestinian brothers' intifada" by "killing Jews and striking their interests worldwide."

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He asserts that the chaos in Syria presents the "best battlefield" for building the capacity for eventually "liberating al-Quds," the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

"The road to liberating Palestine is today much shorter compared to before the blessed Syrian revolution," he said.

The message is the second message that Hamza bin Laden has released on behalf of al-Qaeda. Like the previous recording, which was released last August, the younger bin Laden's words are accompanied by a propaganda video that includes footage of his father.

When a US Navy SEAL team assassinated Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011, Hamza, along with his mother Khairiah Sabar and his brother Khalied, was reported to have been killed. But Pakistani intelligence officials later hinted that Hamza had escaped during the raid. He has since emerged as an occasional mouthpiece for al-Qaeda propaganda.

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His latest message is in sync with a recent call by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri urging jihadist groups to work together in Syria.

"The matter of unity today is one of life and death," Zawahiri said in an audio message that was posted online this past Saturday. "Either you unite to live as Muslims with dignity, or you bicker and separate and so are eaten one by one."

Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, is the one of the most powerful players in Syria's ongoing civil war. Its fighters clash with the Islamic State, the Syrian government, and other rebel groups, though in certain areas Nusra has forged alliances with less radical rebel factions.

Nusra has capitalized on the power vacuum in Syria over five years of civil war, effectively asserting control over several major areas, including the northern province of Idlib. The group is considered to be a terrorist organization by all major international powers, and has been routinely excluded from ceasefires and truces negotiated between the Syrian regime and other rebel factions.

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