The absence of any evidence of an explosion at the scene where the al-Qaeda commander was assassinated suggests that the US may have deployed Hellfire R9X missiles in the August 1 air raid.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, was killed by two rockets fired at a safe house in Kabul (Afghanistan), however pictures from the scene indicate that the home sustained only little damage as a result of the airstrike.
While the rest of the building, including the windows on other floors, is still standing, it is clear from clear pictures of the house that several of the windows on that floor have been blown out.
According to US officials, who were cited by military cognizance, there were no additional casualties, and although members of the Zawahiri family were there in the home, they were unharmed. From this assertion, it is clear that the US missile used to eliminate the al-Qaeda leader was accurate and had a modest amount of explosive force.
As a result, our experts made the assumption that the US was probably utilising Hellfire R9X missiles to launch the attack.
When analysing the aftermath of the airstrike that killed terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, military specialists claim that the US had a very big capability to utilise Hellfire R9X missiles.
According to a source in the “military Cognizance,” the US drone fired two missiles as soon as Ayman al-Zawahiri left the safe house’s balcony. The al-Qaeda chief regularly goes to the balcony in the morning. It goes without saying that this is the perfect mission for the Hellfire R9X since it will reduce unexpected losses in crowded locations.
A unique variant of the Hellfire series, the Missile RX9, weighs roughly 45 kg. R9X doesn’t blow up when it attacks. Instead, just before the missile impacted its target, six inbuilt sharp blades sprang out. The target will be destroyed with a lot of kinetic energy and blade sharpness.
Since the terrorist leader constantly moving around, it took US intelligence years to determine his whereabouts. When US intelligence discovered in early 2022 that al-Zawahiri had relocated to a safe house in Kabul with his wife and children, a mission to assassinate the Al Qaeda leader was immediately organised.
After conferring with intelligence and defence officials, US President Joe Biden gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri on July 25. Additionally, Mr. Biden set the objective of minimising the number of accidental casualties during the operation.
These facts, according to analysts, increase the likelihood that the US military employed Hellfire R9X missiles to immediately eliminate Ayman al-Zawahiri. It should be noted that neither the Pentagon nor the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the two organisations in charge of striking terrorist leaders, have ever openly acknowledged utilising this enigmatic missile.
When prominent al-Qaeda figure Abu al-Khayr al-Masri was attacked by a drone while driving across Syria in March 2017, the Hellfire R9X first surfaced.
The car, which was named after Khayr al-Masri, can be seen in photos to have a massive hole in the roof and to have the metal body and inside shredded to pieces. The car’s rear and front bodies, however, appear to be totally undamaged. Up to that point, Hellfire missiles were still regarded as formidable weapons capable of inflicting significant harm and casualties.
But up until this point, a handful of attacks directed against other carefully chosen targets have had quite different outcomes.
