News Brief
'Flying Ginsu': The Warhead-Less Missile US Used To Kill al-Qaida Leader al-Zawahiri In The Balcony Of A Kabul Safe House
- The Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by two missiles fired at his safe house by a US drone.
- The drones are believed to have used Hellfire R9X, a warhead-less missile, for the operations.
Hellfire R9X
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, United States President Joe Biden has said.
Al-Zawahiri was killed on Sunday (31 July) on the balcony of his Kabul safe house, a compound owned by a senior Taliban leader.
The Al-Qaeda leader was killed by two missiles fired at his safe house by a US drone. The drones are believed to have used Hellfire R9X, a warhead-less missile, for the operations, reports have said.
A modified version of the widely-used Hellfire missile (part of India's Apache attack helicopter weapons package), the R9X has been specially built to kill terrorists without an explosion.
At least ten innocent people, including seven children, were killed in the strike conducted using MQ-9 Reaper drones to target ISIS-K terrorists.
Also called 'the flying Ginsu' or 'Ninja bomb', the missile is designed to plunge more than 100 pounds of metal. For this purpose, it is also equipped with six long, razor-like blades that are stowed inside the fuselage and deployed seconds before the missile impacts the target. Using these blades, the missile slices through its target but does not explode.
The weapon, which was under development as early as 2011, appeared for the first time in March 2017, when the US eliminated an Al-Qaeda leader, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri (deputy leader of al-Qaeda, directly below al-Zawahiri), while he was travelling in a car in Syria.
The photos of al-Masri's vehicle that emerged a few days later showed a large hole through the roof, with the car's metal and interior shredded and the front and rear parts completely intact.
"A missile with similar capabilities was considered as a “Plan B” to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that year, according to several of the officials," the Washington Post said in a report on the mystery weapon in May 2019.
