The CIA’s latest high tech assassination precision strike missile appears something straight out of Mortal Kombat. “To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky,” the WSJ wrote, revealing the weapon publicly for the first time based on interviews with over a dozen current and former defense officials.
The R9X is the newest “secret” missile in the CIA arsenal and is nicknamed the “flying Ginsu” — given its six blades used to kill targets on impact as the missile lands at high speed, without carrying an explosive payload.
It’s a modified version of the Hellfire missile which can shred anything in its path on impact, but designed to prevent or minimize civilian deaths.
It’s also sometimes called “the Ninja Bomb” for its ability to rip through cars and buildings after being fired from a UAV as a kind of 100-pound giant flying switchblade, but since it doesn’t create a blast radius, is optimal for individual targeting.
According to the WSJ, the CIA began development of the missile in 2011 for close proximity “war on terror” targeted assassinations — also as a way to protect non-combatants who might be used as human shields, as terrorists tend to embed themselves within urban civilian populations. – READ MORE