The Pentagon reportedly used the R9X Hellfire missile to kill two militants associated with ISIS-K in Afghanistan.
The Defense Department reportedly employed a specialized missile that’s best described as a meteor full of swords to take out an ISIS-K leader in retaliation for the group’s brutal bombing of Kabul’s airport amid the ongoing U.S.-led evacuation efforts there. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the Pentagon had used the R9X variant of the notorious AGM-114 Hellfire missile fired from an MQ-9 Reaper drone to kill two militants associated with ISIS’s Afghanistan branch in the country’s Nangarhar province. Colloquially referred to as a “ninja bomb” or “flying Ginsu” and first publicized by the Wall Street Journal back in 2019, the joint CIA/DoD R9X does not use an explosive warhead. Rather, the missile comes packed with a halo of blades that deploy moments before impact to effectively eviscerate a target, a lethal update to the inert “Lazy Dog” bombs of the U.
