The New York Times, citing an anonymous source in the US administration, confirms the use of a special modification of the Hellfire R9X rocket to eliminate the leader of the terrorist group Huras Ad-Din (al-Qaeda in Syria) as a result of a drone strike on June 14 in the Syrian province of Idlib.
Khaled Al-Aruri has become one of the six targets for the destruction of which this munition has been used over the past few years, according to NYT.
Abu Khallad al-Muhandis’s death was big news in the jihadi scene
The US government has officially confirmed the use of R9X in only two cases:
– A CIA drone hit in January 2019 in Yemen, which resulted in the elimination of Jamal Al-Badawi, one of the USS Cole suspected of attacking a US Navy destroyer in 2000;
– A drone attack by the Joint Special Operations Command drone in Syria in February 2017 against Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, the second man in al-Qaeda.
#pt: Some AQ-linked sources in #Syria are now also ID’ing Abu al-Khayr’s real name, as:
"Abdullah Mohammed Rajab Abd al-Rahman” pic.twitter.com/21Iet47Ayd
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) February 26, 2017
The modified Hellfire missile carried an inert warhead. Instead of exploding, it hurled about 100 pounds of metal through the top of Mr. al-Aruri’s car. If the high-velocity projectile did not kill him, the missile’s other feature almost certainly did: six long blades tucked inside, which deployed seconds before impact to slice up anything in its path.
The Hellfire variant, known as the R9X, was initially developed nearly a decade ago under pressure from President Barack Obama to reduce civilian casualties and property damage in America’s long-running wars in far-flung hot spots such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
