Osama's son 'bent on avenging his father's death':Ex-FBI agent

May 13, 2017

Washington, May 13: Hamza, about 28 year old now, wrote those letters when he was 22 and had not seen his father bin Laden in several years.laden

Ali Soufan, the former FBI agent who was the bureau's lead investigator of al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, told CBS News the letters reveal Hamza to be a young man who adores his father and wants to carry on his murderous ideology.

The letters collected in the raid by helicopter-borne US Navy SEALs at a secure high-walled compound in Abbottabad, a garrison town north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, in May 2011 have now been declassified.

Only a handful of US military and senior officials around then US President Barack Obama knew of the raid that was reportedly in the planning for months.

For a new episode of '60 Minutes' on the network, Soufan described one of those letters from Hamza: "He tells him that...he remembers 'every look...every smile you gave me, every word you told me.'"

Hamza also wrote this: "I consider myself to be forged in steel. The path of jihad for the sake of God is what we live."

Soufan said Hamza's potential as a leader was recognised years ago when he was still a boy. He was used in propaganda videos, sometimes holding a gun.

"He was a poster kid for the al Qaeda...and for members of al Qaeda, who were indoctrinated with these propaganda videos, he means a lot to them," Soufan said.

This January, the US named Hamza a "specially-designated global terrorist" - the same classification bin Laden had.

He even sounds like his father, said Soufan. "His recent message that came out, he delivered the speech as if it's his father...using sentences, terminology that was used by Osama bin Laden."

Hamza has recorded four audio messages in the last two years. "He's basically saying, 'American people, we're coming and you're going to feel it. And we're going to take revenge for what you did to my father...Iraq... Afghanistan'...the whole thing was about vengeance," Soufan said.

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March 30,2020

Mar 30: Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany's Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming "deeply worried" over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said Sunday.

Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. The Wiesbaden prosecution's office said they believe he died by suicide.

"We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all we are immensely sad," Bouffier said in a recorded statement.

Hesse is home to Germany's financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.

A visibly shaken Bouffier recalled that Schaefer, who was Hesse's finance chief for 10 years, had been working "day and night" to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.

"Today we have to assume that he was deeply worried," said Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"It's precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him," he added.

Popular and well-respected, Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Bouffier.

Like Bouffier, Schaefer belonged to Merkel's centre-right CDU party.

He leaves behind a wife and two children.

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News Network
April 24,2020

Washington, Apr 24: The number of coronavirus cases in the US has surpassed 850,000, Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center data revealed on Thursday (local time).
The country now has registered 8,56,209 cases overall, according to the data, including 47,272 deaths.

The US currently leads the world in the number of reported COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases.

There are more than 2.6 million COVID-19 cases around the world and more than 1,85,000 deaths, according to the data.

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February 10,2020

New Delhi, Feb 10: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah's sister on Monday moved the Supreme Court to challenge his detention under the Public Safety Act.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioner, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice N V Ramana.

Sibal told the bench that they have filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the detention of Abdullah under the PSA and the matter should be heard this week.

The bench agreed for urgent listing of the matter.

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