Posted at 02:14 PM ET, 05/17/2011

Rep. Peter King to hold hearing on homeland security

implications of bin Laden’s death

Residents and reporters stand outside the house where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught and killed by U.S. forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Aqeel Ahmed)The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing next week examining the implications of Osama bin Laden’s death on U.S. homeland security, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), announced Tuesday.

“At this hearing, the Committee will examine the near-term and long-term consequences and benefits to the security of our homeland resulting from the successful killing of al-Qaeda’s founder and top leader,” King said in a statement. “While the removal of Bin Laden from the battlefield is certainly a victory in our war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, it also means increased risk of retaliatory attacks against America by bin Laden supporters, just as we have seen recently in Pakistan.”

The hearing, slated for next Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., will be the first held by King’s committee examining the aftermath of the mission by U.S. forces that killed bin Laden earlier this month.

Among the witnesses expected to testify are Peter Bergen, a scholar at the New America Foundation; former George W. Bush counterterrorism adviser Fran Townsend; and counterterrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann.

The hearing comes two months after King’s controversial hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims.