Pentagon builds 'knife bomb' that kills targets without exploding
The Pentagon has built a new missile known as a 'ninja bomb' which deploys a ring of steel blades to kill its target rather than exploding.
The secret R9X missile is designed to destroy individual terrorist targets without harming surrounding civilians and could potentially kill a car's front seat passenger without harming the driver.
American forces have only used the highly specialised weapon a handful of times since it was first developed from the more common Hellfire missile, the Wall Street Journal reported.
R9X missiles are thought to have been used on targets in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia. Victims include Jamal al-Badawi, who was accused of being behind the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors in a Yemeni port.
Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri, the Egyptian number two al Qaeda was also killed in Syria's Idlib province by an R9X fired from a US aircraft operated by the CIA in 2017.
There had been speculation about the possibility of a new Pentagon weapon after analysts noted the unusual aftermath of at least one high profile counter terrorism strikes.
America's weapon of choice for air strikes targeting terrorist suspects has long been the high precision Hellfire missile, which began life as a Cold War anti-tank missile but later became used for counter terrorism strikes.
The Hellfire explodes on impact and reduces targets to blasted, burnt wreckage. Hellfire missiles are still used to target groups of militants where there are no concerns about civilian casualties.
However photographs of Masri's vehicle after he was killed instead showed an oblong hole torn into the roof, with no burn marks suggesting an explosion. The windscreen was only cracked.
The R9X, which is nicknamed “the flying Ginsu” after a brand of American household knives, carried an inert warhead and was designed to punch 100lb of metal through car and building roofs, officials told the paper.
The effect is likened to an anvil falling from the sky onto the target. But the weapon is made more deadly by a ring of six long blades stowed inside which deploy through the skin of the missile immediately before impact, shredding anything in their way.
As well as cars, the weapon could also be used on flimsy buildings which could collapse and kill others if hit by an explosion.
The new missile was under development as early as 2011 and was reportedly born from Barack Obama's emphasis on cutting civilian casualties in America's long-running counter insurgency and counter terrorism campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Officials said terrorist fighters had become increasingly aware of American efforts to cut civilian casualties because of the anger they caused among the local people.
Mr Obama in May 2013 said he was not ordering any strikes unless there was “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured”. Terrorists had adapted to the American hesitancy to strike by increasingly hiding among groups of women and children as human shields to avert strikes.
The R9X is now only used in limited cases, to target single individuals where there is detailed information about their location, but the risk of civilians nearby, officials said.
