CIA Kills Al Qaeda Leader Zawahiri With Minor Damage: Use Ninja Missiles And Fire From Pakistan?

MQ-9 Reaper AS drone illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/US Air Force)

JAKARTA - The success of the United States' central intelligence agency (CIA) in killing Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahir last weekend, left an analysis of the location of the shooting and the type of missile used.

Ayman al Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike on the balcony of a safe house in Kabul, with minimal damage to the site.

According to Sputnik News on August 2, Western experts believe the drone, or drone used in the attack, fired missiles from Pakistani airspace.

“One way or another, Pakistani airspace is likely being used,” Laurel Miller, director of the Asia Program at the Brussels-based Crisis Group commented.

Rupert Stone, another security analyst, claimed that it was hard to believe the attack was the result of US-Taliban intelligence sharing.

“More likely is US-Pakistan (sic) cooperation. Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) must have proper visibility into events in Kabul. The drone may have come from the Gulf via Pakistani airspace or from a base in Pakistan," Stone wrote on Twitter.

Illustration of a US drone remote control room. (Wikimedia Commons/USGOV-PD)

The drone strike came a day after General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army, held a telephone conversation with US CENTCOM commander General Michael Erik Kurilla, according to an official statement by the Pakistani military.

Media reports said Bajwa had also spoken to US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman after the attack, allegedly seeking Washington's help in securing $1.7 billion in financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In an official statement announcing the attack, US President Joe Biden said Zawahiri was tracked in downtown Kabul by American intelligence agencies earlier this year.

The "precision-tuned air strike" that targeted Zawahiri used two Hellfire missiles, a senior Biden administration official said, as reported by CNN.

The US and Pakistan signed the Ground Lines of Communications (GLOCS) and Air lines of communications (ALoCS) agreements in 2001, under which NATO and American forces can use Pakistan's territory and airspace for counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan.

Illustration of the US MQ-9 Reaper drone with the Ginsu R9X Hellfire Missile. (Wikimedia Commons/Capt Brian Wagner)

In addition to the location of the shooting, the type of missile used to kill al Zawahiri also attracted attention.

The US has not officially confirmed the type of weapon used in the attack, but military analysts say there are signs that it may be the so-called flying variant of the Hellfire Ginsu R9X Washington missile, also dubbed the Ninja Hellfire.

Ninja Hellfire missiles are designed to kill individuals and not groups. It is meant to be so precise that it can hit one passenger of the car, leaving the others unharmed.

While there are several Hellfire missile variants, anti-armor, anti-personnel and low-impact, other low-explosive variants, the R9X is different.

This variant has a solid metal warhead weighing 45 kilograms which a US official told the Wall Street Journal, is like an anvil falling from the sky.

The R9X has been nicknamed Ninja, or "Flying Ginsu" after the kitchen knife brand, because just before hitting the target, six long blades emerge from the missile.

Illustration of the Ginsu R9X Hellfire Missile (black and yellow stripes) on the US MQ-9 Reaper drone. (Wikimedia Commons/US Air Force)

But, the missile is officially top secret. The US has yet to acknowledge its existence or details on how it works or when it has been used even after details leaked in 2019.

The Americans have not confirmed that they used the R9X to kill Al Zawahiri, but the site of the attack reportedly showed very little damage around the balcony where he was killed or other parts of the apartment building.

Washington also stressed that in planning operations avoiding civilian casualties is the key. This is the case after the American attack on August 29 in Kabul hit a white sedan and killed 10 civilians, including up to seven children.

The R9X missile is believed to have been developed under Barack Obama's presidency to seek a more targeted means of firing. The US developed the R9X to be able to kill wanted people without harming civilians.

This type of missile appears to have been widely used in Syria to kill militant leaders. The New York Times reported that Ninja Hellfire was used to kill Sayyaf Al Tunsi, a senior Al Qaeda planner involved in attacks in the West, on September 14, 2020.

In June 2020, the US killed Khaled Al Aruri, the de facto leader of Al Qaeda in Syria, with what appears to be the same weapon. In 2017, Al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Al Khayr Al Masri, the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and a close confidant of Al Zawahiri, were killed in such a drone strike.