A CIA analyst who examined the letters told AFP that in July 2009, when Hamza wrote the letter to his father's Abbottabad hideout, they had not seen each other for eight years. But the elder bin Laden was making plans to send for his son, who was at the time under house arrest in Iran, and planned to groom him to become al Qaeda's leader.
Since Bin Laden's death, his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has taken up the reins of the organisation, but Hamza has issued audio messages to supporters. The State Department order lists Hamza bin Laden as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," meaning that US citizens are forbidden from dealing with him, and freezing any assets under US jurisdiction.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017