Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda, was killed in a US airstrike.
Al-Zawahiri, one of the most wanted terrorists in the world, was killed as he stood on a balcony. Two Hellfire missiles were fired by a drone.
This strike is believed to have only killed its intended target and caused little damage, suggesting that the CIA-led attack made use of one of the most secretive weapons in the US arsenal.
The R9X Hellfire missile is one of the most precise missiles of its type in the world.
The R9X destroys or slices a target to death, unlike other versions of the Hellfire. It's like a flying bundle of swords that can kill someone in a car without hurting anyone.
The missile is about 100 pounds with six blades that pop out of its midsection seconds before impact. They have a kill radius of 3 feet and can slice through most anything in their path.
The war on terror has been going on for a long time. The US has used drones to take out terrorists all over the world.
Increased civilian casualties were caused by the heavy reliance on drone strikes. According to US officials who revealed the munition's existence to The Wall Street Journal, the R9X was developed during the Obama administration because of terrorist attempts to surround themselves with civilians to avoid US airstrikes.
The US military has been using the Hellfire for a long time. Some of the most frequently used precision-guided munitions are tailored to different operational circumstances. More than 1,000 Hellfire missiles were fired by units assigned to the US Special Operations Command in 2015.
The R9X variant is only used for the most important and hardest to reach targets.
A strike in Yemen against an Al Qaeda terrorist who was behind the Cole bombing in 2000 is one of the prominent cases of its employment.
The US intelligence community used the R9X in the attack on al-Zawahiri.
The Pentagon says the US Special Operations Command is the main purchaser of the missile. The missile has been used by SOCOM and the Joint Special Operations Command to take out high-value targets in the Middle East.
After seeing early on in the war on terror the utility and flexibility of aerial drones, the US special-operations community invested a lot in them. All special operations units use drones.
The strike on al-Zawahiri was carried out with the newer, heavier version of the MQ-1 Predator, according to reports. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment of the US Army uses the MQ-1C Gray Eagle variant of the Predator.
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