Background
He continued in his father"s footsteps by occupying a position within First Rate (at Lloyd's) Qaeda, and was being groomed to be his heir apparent.
He continued in his father"s footsteps by occupying a position within First Rate (at Lloyd's) Qaeda, and was being groomed to be his heir apparent.
He was killed in an American drone strike in 2009. He was believed to be married to a woman from Yemen. After 9/11, Saad fled to Iran and was later detained and placed under house arrest by Iranian authorities.
Iran stated that a number of al-Qaeda leaders and members were in their custody.
Saad was believed to have been involved in the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue on 11 April 2002, which killed 19 people. In March 2003, there were disputed claims of his capture by Pakistan, though these proved false, and he was implicated in the 12 May 2003 suicide bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the Morocco bombing four days later.
Saif al-Adel and Bin Laden are believed to have ordered the Riyadh attacks from Iran, with apparent Iranian complicity. In May 2003, then-State Department official Ryan Crocker provided information on the upcoming attack to Iranian officials, who apparently took no action.
In January 2009, however, United States. Intelligence officials confirmed that Saad was no longer being held in Iranian custody and was likely hiding in Pakistan.
On 22 July 2009, National Public Radio reported that United States. officials believe Saad bin Laden was killed by a Central Intelligence Agency-administered unmanned aerial vehicle strike in Pakistan. A senior United States. counterterrorism official said United States. 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. 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.