By Mark Ellis –
The terrorist leaders never saw it coming. A secretive new missile developed by the Defense Department and CIA never exploded, but unfurled six screaming blades that minced their way through the targeted vehicle and the Al-Queda-affiliated officials inside.
The drone strike June 14th killed Jordanian Qassam ul-Urdini and Yemeni Bilal al-Sanaani in Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria.
Video of the impacted vehicle shows one side completely untouched, while the roof, one side and the front window were severed.
The new R9X weapon, dubbed the “Flying Ginsu” or the “Ninja Bomb” unfurls six steel blades in the moments before impact. Without an explosion or impact crater, it drastically reduces the risk of collateral damage to civilians. The halo of blades can slash through buildings or vehicles with ease.
“The Hellfire R9X missile is a modified version of the Hellfire anti-tank missile, the likes of which have been featured on America drones like the Reaper and Predator,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News. “The result is a much smaller kill radius, which can limit the damage caused by the missile to the intended target area. Such a feature is increasingly needed for counterterrorism campaigns, where the fighting is closer-in, and the environment around the target is more dense and likely to be filled with non-combatants.”
The traditional Hellfire missile can kill everything within a 700-foot radius, whereas the new weapon can pinpoint its deadly force to as small a radius as 30 inches.
It is said to have the ability of killing a passenger within a vehicle but not the driver of the same vehicle sitting within a few feet. It can slice through the walls or roof of a house, killing a terrorist leader sitting at a meal, but not harm others sitting at the same table.
“Some analysts allege that the Hellfire R9X was used in Iraq in a deadly display of its effectiveness this January against Qassem Soleimani – the former Commander of Iran’s IRGC Quds-Force, and Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former Commander of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq,” Taleblu told Fox.
The development of the warhead began as early as 2011 under former President Barack Obama, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), due to concerns about collateral damage in densely populated areas.
Terrorist leaders often surround themselves with women and children to complicate targeting them. The R9X was instigated to deal with those conditions.
Amazing terror
This feels really out of place on God Reports…
Glorifying a weapon that was used against an Iranian military leader on a diplomatic mission to Iraq – in clear violation of international law, not to mention ethics and decency – will only embolden the perpetrators to carry out further violence across the world…
Less collateral damage, sure, but these gruesome weapons forever traumatize bystanders.
I agree, this was questionable in terms of the bulk of our content on the website. If there is a just war consensus here — which Christians may debate — it seems the motivation to reduce civilian casualties is important morally and theologically, and a goal we should embrace based on our Judeo-Christian heritage.
To describe Qasem Soleimani as merely “an Iranian military leader on a diplomatic mission to Iraq,” not to mention Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, is a mischaracterization of both designated terrorists. And it is a misguided, naïve pacifism which decries the attack as a “violation of international law, ethics and decency” without apparently taking into account their record of service to the Iranian regime, or the responsibility of the U.S. government (Romans 13:4) to defend and protect its citizens.
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