Was Osama Bin Laden son killed according to the Taliban leader?”
A U.S. counterterrorism official said Thursday that Saad bin Laden, a son of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, may have been killed, but that intelligence agencies are not certain of his fate. Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, the official said Saad had not been a major operational figure in his father’s terrorist organization. The son may have been killed in a U.S. Predator drone strike in Pakistan earlier this year, according to several U.S. broadcast organizations. Officials said there was a “80 to 85” percent per chance he was killed during a strike on someone else, National Public Radio and Fox News reported. Saad bin Laden was believed to have fled Afghanistan for Iran shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. After being held under a form of house arrest in Iran for a number of years, he is believed to have turned up in Pakistan, where his father has reportedly been in hiding somewhere in the ungoverned border region near Afghanistan.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – One of Osama bin Laden’s sons was probably killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan earlier this year, U.S. National Public Radio reported, citing U.S. intelligence sources. A U.S. counter-intelligence official said it was “80 to 85 percent” certain that Sa’ad bin Laden, who was in his twenties, had been killed. The official said the son of the al Qaeda leader was not a major figure, and would not have been important enough to target but “was in the wrong place at the wrong time”. It was unknown whether Sa’ad was anywhere near his father when he died, NPR said. A U.S. intelligence official said in January that Sa’ad was freed from custody in Iran and probably went to Pakistan. The United States believes Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan. While intelligence agencies have had near misses tracking his deputy Ayman al Zawahri in Pakistan, the hunt for bin Laden went cold several years ago.
