The drone and tech missiles with which al Zawahiri was killed

In the night between Saturday 30 July and Sunday 31 July (Italian time), the United States killed Ayman al Zawahiri, leader of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, with a precision attack that took place in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan, by means of two missiles carried by a drone. The news was confirmed by US President Joe Biden late yesterday, Monday 1 August, after several international media had anticipated it by citing sources from the US government or security forces. Al Zawahiri, a 71-year-old Egyptian surgeon, was considered to be Osama Bin Laden's closest collaborator - himself killed in a US-led operation in 2011 - and one of the masterminds behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, which resulted in nearly three thousand deaths. According to what Biden reported in his speech to the nation with which he announced the news, the operation - which can be considered a remarkable success for US counterterrorism - did not cause casualties among civilians or al Zawahiri's family members.

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Although there are no official confirmations about the technology used by the US counter-terrorism agency (CIA) to complete the operation, the absence of explosions and the extreme precision of the attack have prompted several analysts and journalists to think that a Hellfire R9X was used for the operation. Adopted by the US security forces since 2017, the R9X missiles are designed to "kill terrorist leaders without explosions, dramatically reducing damage and minimizing the chances of civilian casualties," reads a 2019 article published by the Wall Street Journal. , which quotes several US officials. Rather than explode, this modified version of traditional Hellfire missiles is designed to drop approximately fifty kilograms of metal on its target without harming nearby individuals and property. A few moments before the impact of the missile, six blades are also deployed, which maximize the damage caused by the R9X.

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Second the Wall Street Journal, the development of this special type of missile began in 2011 during the presidency of Barack Obama, in order to avoid civilian deaths in air strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen. For some time, the technology of the R9X, colloquially known as "flying ginsu" (named after a knife brand popularized in the United States by a series of commercials) was kept secret. However, according to some US officials, the missiles have been used on several occasions by federal security forces, again for targeted attacks. An R9X missile was used, for example, in 2019 to kill Jamal al-Badawi, an al Qaeda member accused of leading the attack on US destroyer Uss Cole in a Yemeni port in 2000, which resulted in the deaths of seventeen US sailors.