Humanity Watch

Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al-Qa’eda leader, has married the daughter of the lead 9/11 hijacker, according to media reports. In an interview with The Guardian, Osama bin Laden’s half brothers said their half-nephew has married into the family of Mohammed Atta, who flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Hamza holds a senior position within al-Qa’eda and has sworn revenge for his father’s death in a US raid in 2011, they added. “We have heard he has married the daughter of Mohammed Atta,” said Ahmad al-Attas, son of Osama bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem. “We’re not sure where he is, but it could be Afghanistan.” Hamza, believed to be around 29 years old, “is the son of one of Osama bin Laden’s three surviving wives, Khairiah Sabar, who was living with her husband in a compound in Abbottabad”, in Pakistan, when he was killed, says The Guardian. The newlywed has been married at least once before and had a son, who was recen...

Assailants burned down 11 schools in coordinated attacks in northern Pakistan, police said on Friday. The overnight attacks in the area of Tangeer in Gilgit-Baltistan, a region bordering China, have spread speculation about the presence of Taliban militants, police official Kaka Jan told dpa. Jan said no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, in a region that has been comparatively peaceful so far, and police have launched an investigation. Another police official Imtiaz Ali said, 11 schools, which were burned down either completely or partially, were for boys and girls. Taliban militants have bombed and set fire to hundreds of schools, especially for girls, in areas they once controlled near the Afghan border, before being driven out in military offensives. Taliban militants nearly killed girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai in a gun attack in 2012 in her native town of Swat in Pakistan. She survived and went on to become the youngest Noble Peace Pr...