Two Hellfire R9X missiles fired silently to kill Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri; [All details]

The United States on Monday announced the end of a 21-year-old manhunt for Al-Qaeda leader Ayman-al-Zawahiri, whose killing at a Kabul safe house, in a silent drone missile strike has evoked eyebrows of many defence experts.

It is widely speculated that Zawahiri, like his predecessor Osama bin Laden, had been hiding in Pakistan all these years. But U.S intelligence officials say that Zawahiri moved back to Afghanistan earlier this year. Understandably, believing that he would be safer in a Taliban-controlled territory. Only, it turned out to be his last brush with hide & seek.

The killing, as expected by political experts, will be publicised as the rare and great victory for the Biden administration and also a case in point for what his administration reiterated while pulling out American troops from Afghanistan, “that it can continue to carry out anti-terror operations over the horizon without physically basing troops there.”

A feat for the U.S intelligence officials

Zawahiri’s elimination, indeed is an achievement for the U.S intelligence agencies who, reportedly, worked for months to confirm Zawahiri’s identity and establish a pattern of his movements before carrying out the strike. It will not be long before speculations and conspiracy theories take over this anti-terror operation as well. Soon enough, big Hollywood studios will jump to put out the entire operation on celluloid. So far, here’s all that’s known about the attack.

Al-Zawahiri was killed by the C.I.A (Central Intelligence Agency) in an early morning drone strike in Afghanistan’s Kabul. The biggest challenge lay in first determining the identity of Zawahiri and thereby, locating his life patterns.

Zawahiri was targeted at a house in the Sherpur area, a posh downtown neighbourhood of Kabul, which once housed Western embassies and is now home to high-ranking Taliban officials. It is the location of his residence, which gives rise to doubts over whether Taliban has actually cut ties with Al-Qaeda as claimed.

The CIA exhaustively tracked his movements until they received authorisation for the strike. As per the statements by American officials, Zawahiri was targeted on a balcony with two Hellfire missiles. Nobody else was killed in the attack, neither members of his family nor any nearby civilians.
In a nationwide address, delivered by President Biden, from the balcony of the White House, he said, “Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more.”

Who was Ayman-al-Zawahiri?

The Egyptian doctor turned terrorist-in-chief had been the face of Sunni Islamist terror organisation Al-Qaeda since 2011, when his predecessor Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan’s Abbottabad. Laden was also eliminated in a heavily documented American commando raid.

Zawahiri, who’s killing has been one of the biggest setback to Al-Qaeda, was instrumental in most of Al-Qaeda’s big terror attacks. He has been on the hit list for his role in the 1998 American Embassy bombings in east Africa to the September 11, 2001 attack. He was also Bin Laden’s personal physician. A fundamentalist since late childhood, Zawahiri first formed an underground Islamist organisation when he was all of fifteen. Many counterterrorism experts believed him to be the intellectual head of the Al Qaeda.

What is a Hellfire R9X missile?

Hellfire missiles, specially designed to conduct pinpoint airstrikes that kill terrorist leaders with no explosion and minimising the chances of civilian casualties, are used in the operation by CIA.

Also known as the ‘Ninja bomb, it has become the US “weapon of choice” for killing leaders of extremist groups while avoiding civilian casualties. The missile is fired from a Predator drone. It has no warhead, but deploys six blades which fly in at high speed, crush and slice the targeted person.

The highly secretive Hellfire R9X also has a nickname as “Flying Ginsu” after the 1980 TV commercial for Japanese kitchen knives that would cut cleanly through aluminium cans and remain perfectly sharp.

No DNA confirmation yet

Fearing retaliation by the terror outfit, the US has issued a worldwide alert asking its citizens to observe high level of vigilance while travelling abroad. Al-Qaeda supporters, it is believed, may target US facilities, citizens, organisations in the wake Zawahiri’s killing.

While US President Joe Biden himself announced it from the White House’s Blue Room balcony that Zawahiri was no more, John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the US Nations Security Council, however, stated that there was no DNA confirmation to support Zawahiri’s death. “Quite frankly, based on multiple sources and methods that we’ve gathered information from, we don’t need it.”