Behind America’s secret “ninja knife bomb” used to kill terrorists while leaving everything around them untouched

Last year, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and second-in-line to Usama bin Laden was killed by the United States while standing on his balcony in a crowded area of Kabul, Afghanistan. No collateral damage was reported.

Furthermore, the U.S. slain two wanted terrorist leaders – Jordanian Qassam ul-Urdini and Yemeni Bilal al-Sanaani – while traveling in a vehicle in the early summer of 2020. Their car was left mostly untouched. And then there was the precise killing of Iranian spy mastermind Qassim Solemani and his Iraqi battlefield counterpart Abu Mohandes five months earlier, not to mention several similar strike examples spanning Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen in which the target was taken out with next to no damage to the surroundings.

So, what is behind the string of accurate slayings against accused terror chiefdom?

The use of a “secret” missile jointly developed by both the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) called the Hellfire R9X.

A variation of the Hellfire anti-tank missile, referred to as the R9X and internally called the “Flying Ginsu” or the “ninja bomb,” the weapon is likely to continue to shape the way war is waged given its exactitude and subsequent ability to vastly reduce the risk of collateral damage and civilian casualties.

Essentially, the six-foot-long and 100-pound Hellfire R9X missile is a modified version of the Hellfire anti-tank missile, the likes of which have been featured on American drones like the Reaper and Predator.​ According to an analysis by “The War Zone,” the R9X doesn’t explode and wields six long blades “that are stowed inside and then deploy through the skin of the missile seconds before impact to ensure that it shreds anything in its tracks,” flying directly into designated targets. Compared to the traditional Hellfire, which ignites a potent blast, leaves a mangled mess in its wake and runs the risk of killing others within a 700-foot radius, the new modification is considered quite the advancement with a 100 percent deadly danger zone of 30 inches.  

“The reference to knives is no accident, as it features multiple steel blades that emerge from the missile moments before impact,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), once told me. “The result is a much smaller kill radius, which can limit the damage caused by the missile to the intended target area. Such a feature is increasingly needed for counterterrorism campaigns, where the fighting is closer, and the environment around the target is more dense and likely to be filled with non-combatants.​“

The 100-pound Hellfire R9X, which began development in 2011 as a joint effort by the CIA and DoD to reduce collateral damage and civilian casualties, depends on the impact force in conjunction with the aureole of six blades that furl out during flight. The missile is now widely considered the most tailored munition of its kind worldwide. 

On the downside, critics and analysts point out that using the missile, especially outside of officially declared war zones, could lead to an uptick in military engagement and overt confidence that no civilians will be caught in the crossfire.

Nevertheless, we will likely see this weapon's ongoing development and use as the United States scales down its sweeping “War on Terror” to focus on specific leadership targets globally. And while, on a personal note, I am something of an anti-war war reporter as I rarely see anything of value come from engagement in foreign conflicts, I am no pacifist either. Terrorists continue to wreak havoc on societies and expunge innocent lives, and anything that Western leaders can do to achieve critical strategic goals while minimalizing – and hopefully reducing – civilian casualties is a far better alternative to a large-scale blast that will inevitably slaughter and maim the very humans we ought to protect.

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