State Department offers $1 million for information on Osama bin Laden’s son

The State Department is offering a $1 million reward for information on the whereabouts of Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. soil.

The younger bin Laden has emerged as a leader in the al-Qaida extremist group, the State Department said in a statement Thursday, saying he has “threatened attacks against the United States in revenge for the May 2011 killing of his father by U.S. service members.”

While the United States was searching for Osama bin Laden between 2001 and 2011, the State Department offered a $25 million reward for his capture. He was later killed in a risky raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011. U.S. Special Forces loaded his body onto a helicopter and later buried him at sea.

Now Washington is looking for his son.

On Friday, Saudi Arabia announced that it had revoked bin Laden’s citizenship in November. And in January 2017, he was added to the U.S. terrorist blacklist and his U.S.-based assets were frozen. The United States has tracked messages that he has released on the internet calling for attacks on the United States and its allies, the State Department said Thursday.

As the Washington Post reported in 2017, al-Qaida promoted bin Laden as “a youthful figurehead with an iconic family name,” as part of the group’s larger rebranding efforts. Last year, the Guardian reported that bin-Laden’s half-brothers said he may be married to the daughter of lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. He is thought to be around 30 years old.