Abdul Wassay
The world is seeing a new dawn of offensive weaponry that is lethal, precise, and evolutionary in terms of its offensive capability because it can reduce the collateral damage to almost ZERO. As we witnessed on Monday, 31st July 2022 the US State Department announced that Al-Qaida’s Emir Ayman Al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike in Kabul. He was the mastermind and contributor of many attacks like 9/11, the USS Cole Bombing in Yemen, the Egyptian Embassy Islamabad Bombing, and other attacks in the US and other countries. He was reportedly killed with a new variant of AGM Hellfire Air to Ground, Fire & Forget Missile which is known to be as Hellfire-R9X (Also identified as Flying Ginsu). Original Hellfire was designed and produced as an Anti-Tank Weapon. What is special about this missile is that it does not require any explosive material to kill, instead, it uses steel blades that pop out and raptures its target. This distinctive missile was developed by the CIA for targeted killings of undesired terrorists and entities without the possibility of killing adjacent civilians and non-combatants. It kills enemies by flying straight at them and utilizing its thrust, weight, and blades like appendages to kill.
This Missile was first revealed by Wall Street Journal back in 2019. This missile looks just like its parent missile but contains six steel blades that look like swords and can penetrate steel and concrete to hit the assigned target. This missile is mainly launched from Unmanned Aerial Platforms like Reaper and Predator.
This missile was first used back in 2017 when Al Qaeda Leader and son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden, Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri was assassinated in Syria while Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Ali Al-Badawi was assassinated in Yemen.
Assassination site visuals suggest that the missile which was used in this attack was AGM-Hellfire R9X because there was no explosion and only the window was penetrated and Al-Zawahiri was killed. Similarly, the site of the killing of Ahmed Al-Badawi in a car also shows no sign of a detonation of any kind of explosive.
Charles Lister, who is a senior fellow and director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs At Middle East Institute Washington DC, said that “R9X missiles have been deployed several times by the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) to assassinate senior Al Qaeda figures. The apparent lack of explosive damage may suggest the US used an R9X ‘Flying Ginsu’ missile, which is inert and carries self-deploying blades to kill a target with no collateral damage”
Furthermore to achieve this kind of result in which not even a single non-combatant is harmed and to reduce the collateral damage to a minimum, this weapon system should have great precision and accuracy.
President Obama desired to produce a bomb that can reduce the collateral damage inflicted by the air strikes from the drone program of the CIA. A study conducted by the Bureau of Investigative journalism (BIJ) shows that since 2004 the minimum number of confirmed strikes is almost 14,040 while the total killed is from 8,858 – 16,901 individuals. Total civilian deaths range from 910 – 2,200 and the number of children killed in action range from 283 – 454. Obama revised his strategy by saying in a speech in May 2013 that civilian deaths were unavoidable.
This new weapon type has helped the Armed forces to approach the desired target with minimum to no collateral damage at all. Though Precision Guided Munitions or PGMs approach the target and have less collateral damage than orthodox Air to ground weapons which contain more explosives. These types of weapons are mainly small diameter bombs and the blast radius is comparatively smaller than orthodox bombs so these small diameter bombs are considered to have low to negligible collateral damage. It is important to have a clear difference between very low collateral damage and zero collateral damage. But this new weapon system is the first one in the league to have zero collateral damage. It is believed that AGM Hellfire R9X is used at least half a dozen times since 2011. The United States government is very quiet about the existence of this missile variant.
This evolution of the Hellfire weapon system shows the desire of the US establishment to go for smart weapon systems which are precise, lethal, and have zero collateral damage. In order to utilize this missile, there should be enough intelligence about that person or entity and the precise location is also necessary before the missile is launched. The proliferation of this weapon system will indeed revolutionize warfare in the near future and can help the United States and other states to fulfill their commitments to International Humanitarian Law and Law of War and lessen human rights abuses that occur during operations which were being highlighted by several Human rights organizations like Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch. This type of weapon will transform warfare because only armed combatants and wanted terrorists will be targeted in warfare and many innocent lives can be saved by developing more types of these armaments. It will indeed be a great riposte toward collateral damage.
The world is seeing a new dawn of offensive weaponry that is lethal, precise, and evolutionary in terms of its offensive capability because it can reduce the collateral damage to almost ZERO. As we witnessed on Monday, 31st July 2022 the US State Department announced that Al-Qaida’s Emir Ayman Al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike in Kabul. He was the mastermind and contributor of many attacks like 9/11, the USS Cole Bombing in Yemen, the Egyptian Embassy Islamabad Bombing, and other attacks in the US and other countries. He was reportedly killed with a new variant of AGM Hellfire Air to Ground, Fire & Forget Missile which is known to be as Hellfire-R9X (Also identified as Flying Ginsu). Original Hellfire was designed and produced as an Anti-Tank Weapon. What is special about this missile is that it does not require any explosive material to kill, instead, it uses steel blades that pop out and raptures its target. This distinctive missile was developed by the CIA for targeted killings of undesired terrorists and entities without the possibility of killing adjacent civilians and non-combatants. It kills enemies by flying straight at them and utilizing its thrust, weight, and blades like appendages to kill.
This Missile was first revealed by Wall Street Journal back in 2019. This missile looks just like its parent missile but contains six steel blades that look like swords and can penetrate steel and concrete to hit the assigned target. This missile is mainly launched from Unmanned Aerial Platforms like Reaper and Predator.
This missile was first used back in 2017 when Al Qaeda Leader and son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden, Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri was assassinated in Syria while Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Ali Al-Badawi was assassinated in Yemen.
Assassination site visuals suggest that the missile which was used in this attack was AGM-Hellfire R9X because there was no explosion and only the window was penetrated and Al-Zawahiri was killed. Similarly, the site of the killing of Ahmed Al-Badawi in a car also shows no sign of a detonation of any kind of explosive.
Charles Lister, who is a senior fellow and director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs At Middle East Institute Washington DC, said that “R9X missiles have been deployed several times by the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) to assassinate senior Al Qaeda figures. The apparent lack of explosive damage may suggest the US used an R9X ‘Flying Ginsu’ missile, which is inert and carries self-deploying blades to kill a target with no collateral damage”
Furthermore to achieve this kind of result in which not even a single non-combatant is harmed and to reduce the collateral damage to a minimum, this weapon system should have great precision and accuracy.
President Obama desired to produce a bomb that can reduce the collateral damage inflicted by the air strikes from the drone program of the CIA. A study conducted by the Bureau of Investigative journalism (BIJ) shows that since 2004 the minimum number of confirmed strikes is almost 14,040 while the total killed is from 8,858 – 16,901 individuals. Total civilian deaths range from 910 – 2,200 and the number of children killed in action range from 283 – 454. Obama revised his strategy by saying in a speech in May 2013 that civilian deaths were unavoidable.
This new weapon type has helped the Armed forces to approach the desired target with minimum to no collateral damage at all. Though Precision Guided Munitions or PGMs approach the target and have less collateral damage than orthodox Air to ground weapons which contain more explosives. These types of weapons are mainly small diameter bombs and the blast radius is comparatively smaller than orthodox bombs so these small diameter bombs are considered to have low to negligible collateral damage. It is important to have a clear difference between very low collateral damage and zero collateral damage. But this new weapon system is the first one in the league to have zero collateral damage. It is believed that AGM Hellfire R9X is used at least half a dozen times since 2011. The United States government is very quiet about the existence of this missile variant.
This evolution of the Hellfire weapon system shows the desire of the US establishment to go for smart weapon systems which are precise, lethal, and have zero collateral damage. In order to utilize this missile, there should be enough intelligence about that person or entity and the precise location is also necessary before the missile is launched. The proliferation of this weapon system will indeed revolutionize warfare in the near future and can help the United States and other states to fulfill their commitments to International Humanitarian Law and Law of War and lessen human rights abuses that occur during operations which were being highlighted by several Human rights organizations like Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch. This type of weapon will transform warfare because only armed combatants and wanted terrorists will be targeted in warfare and many innocent lives can be saved by developing more types of these armaments. It will indeed be a great riposte toward collateral damage.
Published in Global Affairs September 2022 Edition
