WASHINGTON - The Obama administration imposed sanctions Thursday on Hamza bin Laden, a son of Sept 11 terror attacks mastermind Osama bin Laden, saying that Hamza poses a risk to national security in the United States.
The State Department said in a statement that Hamza bin Laden has been added to its Specially Designated Global Terrorist list after he was "determined to have committed, or pose a serious risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security."
Hamza bin Laden was officially named an al-Qaeda member in 2014 by his father's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In an audio message in 2016, Hamza bin Laden threatened revenge against the U.S. and warned Americans that they would be targeted at home and abroad. In a 2015 audio message from al-Zawahiri, Hamza bin Laden called for acts of terrorism in Western capitals, according to the State Department.
Hamza bin Laden also has called for lone wolf attacks against the U.S., France, and Israel.
"Hamza bin Laden is actively engage in terrorism," the State Department said Thursday. The sanctions deny people access to the U.S. financial system and "can assist or complement the law enforcement actions of other U.S. agencies or other governments."
Site Intelligence's co-founder Rita Katz has said Hamza bin Laden was being projected "as a future leader: someone loved and inspirational, without a negative reputation or participation in infighting."
However, Hamza bin Laden had not shown the operational or intellectual acumen that would make him a viable replacement for Zawahiri, despite the current leader's perceived lack of charisma, Katz said.
Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al-Qaeda, met his end 10 years after the 9/11 attacks in 2011 in a firefight with a small team of U.S. forces that launched a daring raid on the compound where he was holed up with some trusted advisers. He was hiding only 35 miles from Pakistan's capital Islamabad. Osama bin Laden's death was hailed as a historic success in America's war on terror.
While Hamza "has been labelled a crown prince" after surviving the raid that killed his father and older brother Khlaed, Andreas Krieg, an analyst at King's College in London told The Independent in 2016, the younger son was "not a key figure within al-Qaeda" at this stage.
The State Department also imposed penalties Thursday against Ibrahim al-Banna, a senior member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Banna served as that group's security chief and provided military and security guidance to its leadership.
He wrote a 2010 article in AQAP's English-language magazine, Inspire, hailing the Sept. 11 attacks as virtuous, according to the State Department, and threatened to target Americans both domestically and abroad.