Hamza bin Laden Is Alive. Why Is al-Qaeda Showing Him Now?

Hamza bin Laden is alive. On September 10, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, al-Qaeda released A Quarter Century After the September 11 Raids, Part One, featuring Hamza in three separate scenes. But the footage was not new. Hamza recorded it on August 13, 2021, in Kandahar, as Afghanistan was falling to the Taliban. Al-Qaeda held that footage for more than five years. In this episode of The Watch Floor, Sarah Adams breaks down what the video actually shows, the 2019 deception that led the U.S. to announce Hamza bin Laden was dead, how al-Qaeda concealed his survival and eventual rise to emir, and why the decision to reveal him now matters. The most important question is no longer whether Hamza survived. It is why al-Qaeda spent years hiding him, only to begin showing him now. The threat did not disappear. It evolved.