The R9X Hellfire missile is currently one of the US military’s favorite weapons for precision assassinations, as it carries less risk of “collateral damage”.
Hellfire Ninja R9X Missile. The leader of al Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahri is the latest victim of the “precision killers” in an execution reminiscent of a war movie script, but an advertisement for American military technology.
The R9X Hellfire missile is currently one of the US military’s favorite weapons for precision assassinations, as it poses less risk “collateral losses”.
The R9X missile carries 45 kilograms of reinforced metal on its tip with six extendable blades designed to dismember the target without igniting an explosion that could prove fatal to those nearby. A US official described the killing of al-Zawahri as a “precision airstrike” with the aim of minimizing the risk of civilian casualties.
His former number “2”. Osama Bin Laden was staying in a home in Kabul, Afghanistan with family members when two missiles were fired at him via drone. It was the most significant strike by the United States against al-Qaeda since the killing of bin Laden in 2011. In fact, the RX9 was being considered as one of the lethal weapons to finally destroy the mastermind of 9/11.
It was developed during the Obama presidency in 2011 amid concerns about the number of civilians being killed in drone strikes in the Middle East, as the Ninja missile does not need an explosive warhead to be lethal.
Its construction is the result of a combined effort by the CIA and the US Department of Defense. The missile is manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman. It is unclear how many R9X missiles the Pentagon has in its possession.
The US Joint Special Operations Command has confirmed the use of the R9X twice, in 2019 and 2020, the New York Times reports. However, it has reportedly been used in nearly 12 other cases to eliminate specific targets.
During the Korean and Vietnam wars in the 1950s, the US military conceived an idea for unexploded bombs called Lazy Dogs.
The bombs were designed to kill using kinetic energy after being dropped from an aircraft. The weight weighed about 300 kg. The Lazy Dogs they proved unpopular with American commanders and their development ceased in the 1960s, however the R9X follows the same operational logic with much greater success.
View the news feed and get the latest news.
