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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    En Garde, Terroriste!

    U.S. Used Missile With Long Blades to Kill Qaeda Leader in Syria

    Special Operations forces used a secret weapon designed to limit civilian casualties to strike the Qaeda veteran this month.
    A U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle carrying a Hellfire missile similar to the one used in the strike.Credit...John Moore/Getty Images

    By Eric Schmitt June 24, 2020


    • WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces used a specially designed secret missile to kill the head of a Qaeda affiliate in Syria this month, dealing the terrorist group a serious blow with a weapon that combines medieval brutality with cutting-edge technology.



    American and Qaeda officials said on Wednesday that Khaled al-Aruri, the de facto leader of the Qaeda branch, called Hurras al-Din, perished in a drone strike in Idlib in northwest Syria on June 14. He was a Qaeda veteran whose jihadist career dates to the 1990s.
    How he died was even more striking.

    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 on terrorism in far-flung hot spots such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

    The weapon, first described in detail last year by The Wall Street Journal, has been used perhaps a half-dozen times in recent years, American officials said, typically when a senior terrorist leader has been located but other weapons would risk killing nearby civilians.
    Conventional Hellfire missiles, with an explosive warhead of about 20 pounds, are often used against groups of individuals or a so-called high-value target who is meeting with other militants. But when Special Operations forces are hunting a lone leader, the R9X now is often the weapon of choice.

    American officials confirmed the use of the unusual missile in two specific instances, one by the Central Intelligence Agency and one by the military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command.

    An American military airstrike in Yemen in January 2019 killed Jamal al-Badawi, one of the men suspected of plotting the deadly Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in 2000.

    And Al Qaeda’s second-ranking leader, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, who was also a son-in-law to Osama bin Laden, died in a C.I.A. airstrike in Idlib Province in northwest Syria in February 2017.

    Photographs of the vehicle Mr. al-Masri was said to have been traveling in revealed unusual details for such a strike: The vehicle sustained no major explosive damage, but a projectile clearly struck it directly through its roof. This suggested that the military deliberately used an inert warhead to kill its target by high-velocity impact. Pentagon officials at the time did not disclose details about the R9X’s blades.

    The British Royal Air Force used inert precision-guided bombs in the opening phases of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the French Air Force did the same in Libya in 2011. Neither munition employed the blades that the American version later would.

    Pentagon and C.I.A. representatives declined to comment on Wednesday about the use of the R9X missile in Mr. al-Aruri’s death.
    The use of this type of missile falls in line with the American military’s push to use smaller munitions to kill targets, made apparent during the recent air campaigns against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.

    This includes the increased reliance on the GBU-39, a 250-pound small-diameter bomb used extensively in the 2016 and 2017 battles of Mosul and later Raqqa. Another weapon that has gained popularity is the advanced precision kill weapon system. It transforms a small, unguided 2.75-inch rocket with a laser-guidance kit, effectively turning the weapon into an air-launched sniper round.

    But even the use of smaller, more precise munitions has left hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians killed by American weapons during the six-year war against the Islamic State and the continuing air campaign in Afghanistan.

    The resilience of the Qaeda branch in Syria, as well as the operations of other affiliates in West Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, underscores the terrorist group’s enduring threat despite Bin Laden’s death and being largely eclipsed in recent years by the Islamic State as the terrorist group of choice of global jihadis.


    ...remainder of article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/w...gtype=Homepage
    Last edited by tomcat; 25-06-2020 at 05:52 PM.
    Majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd

  2. #2
    กงเกวียนกำเกวียน HuangLao's Avatar
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    And, yet they [and their convinced followers] don't have the ability to recognize who the real/true terrorists might be, historically.

    Who are the good guys?
    Bamboozled...

  3. #3
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    ...^eventually your code will be broken and a bladed projectile will come hurtling down...better start packing...

  4. #4
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomcat View Post
    ...^eventually your code will be broken and a bladed projectile will come hurtling down...better start packing...
    Nah, he kills his enemies by boring them to death.

  5. #5
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    Klondyke's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HuangLao View Post
    And, yet they [and their convinced followers] don't have the ability to recognize who the real/true terrorists might be,
    They surely will be furnished with a certain application (however, not accessible by Huawei...) , something like a "smart bomb".

  6. #6
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    They surely will be furnished with a certain application (however, not accessible by Huawei...) , something like a "smart bomb".
    ...sounds like you could use one of those...keep it next to your head...

  7. #7
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    Agent_Smith's Avatar
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    Reminds me of that time my brother accidentally hit me in the head with a lawn dart.

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat
    kmart's Avatar
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    The weapon, first described in detail last year by The Wall Street Journal, has been used perhaps a half-dozen times in recent years, American officials said, typically when a senior terrorist leader has been located but other weapons would risk killing nearby civilians.
    Conventional Hellfire missiles, with an explosive warhead of about 20 pounds, are often used against groups of individuals or a so-called high-value target who is meeting with other militants.
    Weapon of choice for the next Bilderberg Group meeting.

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