Zawahiri death: did US use secret ‘flying ginsu’ Hellfire missile?
The macabre Hellfire R9X, a warhead-less missile believed equipped with razor-like blades that slice through its target, has become America’s weapon of choice for killing extremists. This is why.
Notorious Al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by two missiles fired at his Kabul home — but pictures showed no sign of an explosion, and US officials say no one else was harmed.
That points to the use again by the United States of the macabre Hellfire R9X, a warhead-less missile believed equipped with six razor-like blades extending from the fuselage that slices through its target but does not explode.
Never publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon or CIA — the two US agencies known to undertake targeted assassinations of extremist leaders — the R9X first appeared in March 2017 when Al-Qaeda senior leader Abu al-Khayr al-Masri was killed by a drone strike while traveling in a car in Syria.
Photos of the vehicle showed a large hole through the roof, with the car’s metal, and all of the interior, including its occupants, physically shredded. But the front and rear of the car appeared completely intact.
Up until then, Hellfire missiles — fired by drones in targeted attacks — were known for powerful explosions and often extensive collateral damage and deaths.
Since 2017, a handful of other finely-targeted attacks show similar results. Details of the mysterious weapon leaked out, and it was dubbed the “flying ginsu,” after a famous 1980s television commercial for ostensibly Japanese kitchen knives that would cut cleanly through aluminum cans and remain perfectly sharp.
Also called the “ninja bomb,” the missile has become the US munition of choice for killing leaders of extremist groups while avoiding civilian casualties.
That is apparently what happened with Zawahiri.
A US official told reporters that on the morning of July 31, Zawahiri was standing alone on the balcony of his Kabul residence, when a US drone launched the two Hellfires.
Apparent photographs of the building show windows blown out on one floor, but the rest of the building, including windows on other floors, still in place.
Members of Zawahiri’s family were present in the home, but “were purposely not targeted and were not harmed,” the official said.
“We have no indications that civilians were harmed in this strike,” the official added.
The killing of Zawahiri: how it happened
Despite a $25 million US bounty on his head, al-Zawahiri apparently felt comfortable enough with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan to move into a home in Kabul where he would regularly appear out in the open, on his balcony.
But the US government had not given up its pursuit of one of the planners of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the heir to Osama bin Laden.
After years of tracking him down, US armed forces fired two Hellfire missiles from a drone flying above the Afghan capital, striking Zawahiri’s safe house and killing him, President Joe Biden announced on Monday.
US officials described an operation as meticulously planned as that which killed bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout in 2011.
That the leader of the violent jihadist group was in Afghanistan was not surprising: since the hard-line Islamist Taliban regained control in August, Al-Qaeda has felt more at home, analysts say.
But finding him was still hard.
“For several years the US government has been aware of a network that we assessed supported Zawahiri,” a senior administration official told reporters.
But it was only this year that US intelligence learned that his family, his wife, his daughter and her children, had moved to the Afghan capital.
They were careful, the official said, exercising “longstanding terrorist tradecraft” to prevent anyone tracking them to the Qaeda leader.
Still, eventually Zawahiri showed up, and never left.
“We identified Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony,” the official said.
An attack plan developed over May and June. The United States constantly monitored the multi-story residence — just how the official would not say — to understand the family’s pattern of life.
Detailed safe-house model
They studied the construction of the home, aiming to hit Zawahiri without threatening the building’s structural integrity, to minimize the risk to civilians.
Defense and intelligence officials finalized the plan in June and presented it to Biden in the White House on July 1, using a detailed model of the residence, as was done before the bin Laden raid.
Biden asked detailed questions on the structure, weather issues, and the risk to civilians, the official said.
Finally, on July 25, Biden — still ill with a bout of Covid-19 — made the decision.
It took place with key cabinet officials joining the final briefing, echoing the April 28, 2011 White House meeting where president Barack Obama decided to deploy US special operations troops to enter Pakistan and get bin Laden.
At that time Biden was vice president, and he expressed doubts. The risks of things going wrong were high, bin Laden had not been clearly identified, and relations with Pakistan could suffer, he later recalled.
With Zawahiri, however, no US troops would enter the country; Zawahiri was clearly identified; and relations with the Taliban were next to nil.
At the end of the discussion on the 25th, Biden — as Obama had done 11 years earlier — asked each participant for their view.
“All strongly recommended approval of this target,” and Biden gave the go-ahead, the official said.
The strike involved a US drone, armed with two precision-guided Hellfire missiles, which were launched at 6:18 am Sunday, Kabul time.
Drone raises tactical questions
The CIA drone strike that killed al-Zawahiri demonstrates potent US capabilities to target individual terror chieftains, but leaves unanswered the question of whether Washington can remotely thwart plots in Afghanistan before they become a threat.
Senior US officials said that al Zawahiri wasn’t involved in planning al Qaeda terror operations at the time of his death, but rather offered guidance to the group and its many affiliates.
US officials said the strike, almost a year after President Biden ordered the US withdrawal, proved that an American presence in Afghanistan isn’t needed to hit global terror groups. But critics of the administration’s Afghanistan policy say the operation, while a welcome development in the long-term campaign to eliminate leaders of the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, didn’t demonstrate that the U.S. had the ability to respond to new threats that could emanate from the Taliban-ruled country following the American exit.
US travellers warned of increased risks
The US State Department Tuesday warned Americans traveling abroad they face an increased risk of violence after al-Zawahiri’s killing.
His death dealt the biggest blow to Al-Qaeda since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, prompting US President Joe Biden to declare that “justice had been delivered.”
Following the strike, the State Department Tuesday urged US citizens to “maintain a high level of vigilance and practice good situational awareness when traveling abroad.”
“Current information suggests that terrorist organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks against US interests in multiple regions across the globe,” the department said in a statement.
“These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics including suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings and bombings.”
A senior official in the Biden administration said the 71-year-old Egyptian jihadist was on the balcony of a three-story house in the Afghan capital when targeted with the two Hellfire missiles after dawn Sunday.
AFP and agencies
