Trump wanted to get Osama bin Laden's son more than any others

Donald Trump is by no means the first American president to have a list of terrorists he wants to eliminate. Barack Obama had his own personal list which he updated regularly and in fact he ordered more armed drone strikes against America's designated enemies than any other previous president. Drone strikes shot up. According to NBC News, Trump has a similar list but supposedly didn't know any of the names on the list provided by the CIA except for Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden. So he wanted him eliminated as soon as possible. Never mind the guy at the top of the CIA list, Ayman al-Zawahiri, successor to Osama bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda who remains alive but probably not well in his various hideaways in the impenetrable Pakistan/Afghanistan border region. Trump wanted Hamza bin Laden dead above all others. Hamza bin Laden was unquestionably a rising figure in al-Qaeda. His name alone was enough to project him upwards in the hierarchy but all the intelligence experts said he was not yet ready to take over from Zawahiri, and Zawahiri would stay as leader for as long he evaded the US armed drones which are constantly on the look-out for him. But at some point in the future Hamza would have reached the top, and Trump wanted him dead before he had a chance to succeed his father. He was duly eliminated in an airstrike in 2019 or maybe as far back as 2017. His death was only confirmed by Trump in September. Zawahiri must know his turn will come, especially if the CIA keeps on reminding the president that this Egyptian-born individual is al-Qaeda's top man. The whole notion of extra-judicial killing of terrorists is a matter for debate. But there is a reasonable argument that those who carry out attacks on your citizens, or mastermind the attacks, or plot to do so or threaten to do so from some foreign country where they enjoy sanctuary are legitimate targets. The US, being a superpower, has the unrivalled capability to track terrorists and kill them. Trump will not be slow in coming forward to order extra-judicial killings when terrorist leaders are traced. Again, Obama, and George W Bush and Bill Clinton etc did the same. The rest of us are happy - if that is the right word - for the US to take on this responsibility. So the killings of Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader and founder of Isis, were greeted with general acclaim. The targeting of Major-General Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, shortly after he landed at Baghdad airport from Damascus, caused a little more cncern. First because of the potential consequences and second because, technically he wasn't an Osama bin Laden but was an officer of the state of Iran. But the US had designated the Quds Force as a terrorist organisation and its leader as a terrorist. The consequences were grave - more than 100 American soldiers received traumatic brain injuries when Iran fired 16 ballistic missiles at two US-occupied bases in Iraq - but the feared war between the US and Iran didn't happen. But history may show that the removal of Soleimani - an option considered but rejected by previous US administrations - may have been a turning point in the disastrous relations between Washington and Tehran. Whatever else it did it forced the ayatollahs to stop and think. They know for sure that Trump will do it again if necessary. Perhaps the death of Soleimani in such an outrageously bold fashion may persuade them to talk to the US. Eventually. As for Hamza bin Laden, he is a speck in the history of terrorism but he died because Trump recognised his name above all others.