The United States achieved two important goals in the counterterrorism operation to eliminate al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, carrying out a mission without troops in Kabul and using a type of missile that avoided civilian casualties.

For a year, US officials have said that addressing terrorist threats in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of their troops would be difficult, though not impossible.

The US achieved that goal over the weekend by killing al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri after being hit by a CIA drone.

In the past, these types of airstrikes have unintentionally killed innocent civilians, but for the Kabul operation, the United States carefully chose a type of Hellfire missile that minimized the chance that an attack would cause additional casualties, according to the Associated Press. (AP).

Without public confirmation by US authorities of the use of the Hellfire variant, experts and sources familiar with counterterrorism operations explained that the likely variant was top secret Hellfire R9Xknown by various nicknames such as “bomb knife” or “flying ginsu”.

For Clone Kitchen, a former intelligence analyst, the likely use of the R9X suggests that the US intended to kill al-Zawahiri with “limited chance of death and accompanying destruction and for other relevant political reasons.”

Originally developed as an anti-tank missile in the 1980s, the Hellfire has been used by the military and intelligence agencies for the past two decades to hit targets in Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen, among other places.

High-precision guided missiles can be mounted on helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles and are widely used in combat operations around the world.

More than 100,000 Hellfire missiles have been sold to the US and other countries, according to Ryan Brobst, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.

“This projectile can do enough damage to destroy most targets, such as vehicles and buildings, but does not do enough damage to destroy city blocks or cause significant damage to civilians,” Brobst said.

The US military has regularly used Hellfire missiles to destroy key targets, including high-ranking al-Qaeda leader in Syria last year and al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

For last weekend’s attack, the Americans had several options, such as using a traditional Hellfire, a bomb dropped from a manned aircraft, or a more risky attack using ground troops.

SEALs, the elite force of the US Navy, for example, went to Pakistan in helicopters to shoot down Osama bin Laden in a 2011 offensive.

In this case, the CIA chose to strike with a drone, and while the U.S. intelligence agency does not usually confirm its counterterrorism missions or add details, Joe Biden’s government sources explained that two Hellfire rockets were fired at the balcony of the house where al-Zawahiri lived.in Kabul.

Pictures taken inside the building showed damage to the balcony, but the rest of the house wasafter the attack.

Unlike other Hellfire models, the R9X does not carry an explosive charge. Instead, it has a number six rotating blades that appear on their final approach to the target, Kitchen explained.

“One of its uses is to open vehicles and other obstacles to reach a target without the use of an explosive warhead,” Clone Kitchen added.

The prevention of collateral damage was presented as the main goal of the US authorities.

Less than a year ago, an American drone using a conventional Hellfire missile hit a car in the Kabul area and killed 10 nearby civilians, including seven children.

On Monday, a government official said the U.S. was investigating the construction of the house where al-Zawahiri stayed to ensure the operation could be carried out without compromising the structural integrity of the building, as well as minimizing the risk of killing civilians, including members of his family. which was in other parts of the house.