Bin Laden's son calls for uprising against Saudi king

In an audio message released by the militants' media outlet, Hamza bin Laden urged the Saudi tribes to join the Yemen-based al-Qaeda franchise to "gain the necessary experience" to "wage jihad" against the House of Saud.

"There must be an uprising against the American agents, [true] Islamic law ruling the land and the overthrow of the criminal ruling family, which has turned the Land of the Two Holy Mosques into a kingdom of [the West and Iran]," bin Laden said.

"Change in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques will benefit the whole Islamic nation and bring it back to to its glorious past."

He added the Saudi military was "powerless" to confront Yemen's Houthi rebels and has resorted to bombing al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP], despite the fact that the extremists are also targeting the Houthis.

Classified by the US as the network's deadliest franchise, AQAP was formed in January 2009 as a merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of al-Qaeda.

	A Saudi-led coalition is battling Houthi rebels in Yemen [screengrab]

Yemen is the ancestral home of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan in 2011 by an elite team of US Navy SEALS after a decade on the run.

Hamza, 23, was the favourite son of the 9/11 mastermind, who had been grooming him to take over as al-Qaeda's leader.

"Hamza has been trying to exploit the symbolism his father to establish his presence in the jihadi media sphere as we have seen in his recent audio releases," The New Arab's Gulf correspondent Badr al-Rashid said.

"The relationship is unclear between him and al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri but it does not seem as though they are competing for power."

Last month, Hamza threatened to take revenge against the US for killing his father in another audio message posted online.

Saudi authorities in 1994 stripped Osama bin Laden of his nationality after he issued fatwas, denouncing both the royal family and the US.