Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed Monday by America’s secretive and gruesome R9X Hellfire missile — which is also known as the “flying Ginsu.”
The strangest variant in the Hellfire family of missiles — built as a precision weapon of targeted assassination — the R9X’s most distinguishing characteristic is that it doesn’t explode and simply uses its weight, momentum and blade-like appendages to kill.
First revealed by the Wall Street Journal in 2019, the modified R9X trades the standard Hellfire’s explosive warhead for a halo of six metal fins that look like swords and are sharp enough to slice through concrete and steel on their way to a target.
The lethal payload has earned the R9X nicknames like “the flying Ginsu” or “the Ninja bomb” within the defense community.
Designed to be launched from an unmanned drone, the 100-pound R9X deploys the blades through its skin while in flight.
One US official described the weapon to the Wall Street Journal as a “speeding anvil” falling from the sky — with knives.
They took out a
few terrorists an entire Afghan family with one when we were pulling out of Afghanistan.
