Death
On 22 July 2009, National Public Radio reported that U.S. officials believe Saad bin Laden was killed by a CIA-administered unmanned aerial vehicle strike in Pakistan. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said U.S. intelligence agencies are "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden was killed in a missile strike "sometime this year."
On 24 July 2009, The Hindu reported that senior Taliban spokesmen claimed Saad bin Laden was not killed, or even hurt, during the missile attack. No evidence, however, surfaced to prove that Saad was still alive, and it was later reported that Osama bin Laden, shortly before his death during a Navy Seals raid in 2011, was grooming his younger son Hamza bin Laden to be his heir apparent, a position that was originally bestowed to Saad. Letters retrieved from the compound where bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan confirmed that Saad was killed.
In September 2012, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed in a videotape that Saad was killed in the drone strike.
Read more about this topic: Saad Bin Laden
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about death
Making death their ideal basis for different ideals.
The Communists however disapprove of death
Except when practical.”
—William Empson (1906–1984)
“The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)