The Hunt for Hamza bin Laden

bin Laden and son Umar Hamza, undated photo (Getty Images)

Pakistani officials report that during their questioning of bin Laden's widows, they learned his youngest son and close confidant, Umar Hamza bin Laden, has not been seen since the raid and was not accounted for as one of the dead or captured at the scene.  Based on surveillance video,  U.S. officials are confident that no one escaped prior to, during or after the raid.  Therefore, Hamza may have disappeared from the compound before the raid.  This raises interesting questions, but I will save those for another blog.

Hamza is somewhere between 18-22 years old, depending on the source, and dangerous.  In this 2005 video The Mujahideen of Waziristan, Hamza participates in an al-Qaeda assault. 

He is also known for his rants about Western societies, and wrote a poem praising the 7/7 London bombings.  Prior to her death, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto publicly implicated Hamza of  the 2007 assassination attempt in Pakistan that killed 136 people and injured at least 450. The dead included at least 50 of the security guards from her PPP who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, as well as six police officers.  This was a well planned, brazen operation. 

On 5 May, STRATFOR reported a source has indicated "Umar Hamza is focused on recruiting minors with low IQs or with mental disabilities or those who come from broken homes. The jihadist group is especially intent on boosting recruitment in the West African state of Mauritania, where a jihadist presence has reared its head in recent months and where poverty and homelessness among children is high."

Certainly the use of children and mentally ill in Jihadist suicide bombings is nothing new - we've seen the tactic employed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.   This is a form of asymmetric warfare that exploits an area of vulnerability with our troops and first responders.  Therefore, we need to train and otherwise prepare for operations employing children, the mentally and physically challenged, and the elderly.  We can expect these tactics not only overseas, but possibly here in the States. 

As a side note:  if you want to get involved in the grassroots effort to remove Jihadist videos from You Tube,  please file a protest against this channel:    http://www.youtube.com/user/313mujahideen

While the debate goes on about the Internet and whether it should be patrolled and/or controlled, there is a difference between freedom of speech and hateful speech that recruits, incites violence, and glorifies killing.  Why should we sit back and allow our First Amendment be used against us by the enemy when these videos clearly exceed the law and reside on a U.S. hosted website?  Take a look at the subscribers to this channel, visit their sites.  Read the comments posted below the videos.  Would we allow a U.S. extremist group to post these kinds of unrestrained rants on YouTube that call for the violent killing of a specific nationality, race or religion? Something to consider.