A truly surgical strike. Dawn had just broken in Kabul on Sunday morning when two missiles fired from an American drone hit the balcony on which al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had just stepped out, killing him instantly. But the building bears no signs of an explosion and no one else was injured in the operation, according to US officials. These two elements suggest that the Americans used the Hellfire R9X, a missile equipped with six razor-shaped blades, which slices through its target but does not explode. According to New York Timesit was the CIA that coordinated the strike, and not the Pentagon.
little damage
Members of the al-Qaeda leader’s family were present in the house, but “were deliberately not targeted and were not injured”, said a US official. Photos show blown windows on one floor, but the rest of the building, including windows on other floors, are still in place.
A weapon of unconfirmed existence
Until then, Hellfire missiles – fired by helicopters or drones – were known for their powerful explosions and often the collateral damage they caused. The mysterious new weapon used by Americans has been dubbed ‘Flying Ginsu’, after a famous 1980s TV commercial for Ginsu-branded kitchen knives, which could cut cleanly through aluminum cans. and remained perfectly sharp. Also nicknamed the “ninja bomb”, the missile has become the ammunition of choice for killing the leaders of jihadist groups, while avoiding civilian casualties. Officially, the United States has never confirmed its existence. According to wall street journalwhich was the first to devote an article to it in 2019, the missile began to be produced in the early 2010s, under Barack Obama.
A dozen suspected uses
Its existence was first speculated in March 2017, when a senior al-Qaeda leader, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, was killed by a drone strike while driving in a car in Syria. . Photos at the time showed a large hole through the roof of the car. The interior of the vehicle, including its occupants, had been shredded. But the front and rear of the car seemed completely intact. Since then, a handful of targeted attacks had achieved a similar result: the Bellingcat investigative site identified a dozen.