The recent past is a witness to several specialized military assets. Back in 2017, the United States dropped the ‘Mother of all Bombs’ also known as MOAB on ISIS caves all over Afghanistan. 2021 was a witness to Israel’s impenetrable ‘Iron Dome’ system in action. According to reports, the United States military has dropped a highly specialized missile full of swords targetting the ISIS-K during the Kabul drone strike. Read to know what it is.
Taliban take over: How it all began
The Taliban took over the Afghan government in late July, causing a worldwide wave of fear and concern. And by the middle of August, the terrorist group was successful in taking over the whole country.
Reports suggest that the terrorist group’s violent act of bombing the Kabul airport during evacuations was met with a ‘reply’. The US reported used a specialized missile that acted as a ‘meteor full of swords’. This helped in taking on a senior planner of the attack and, a member of the ISIS-K.
Details of the Kabul drone strike
This operation was a response to the Taliban’s bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. The attack killed 13 US military veterans and injured several. The specialized US missile called ‘Ninja Bomb’ released a circle of blades merely minutes before impact. Hence allowing the R9X variant of the AGM-144 ‘Hellfire’ missile to annihilate the target. As per reports from the Wall Street Journal, the missile is used to lower the chances of civilian casualties during the crossfire.
Additionally, it reports the death of two members of ISIS’s Afghan branch in Nangarhar. Ninja Bomb was built jointly by the US Department of Defence and the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Moreover, this is the first known strike of Hellfire’s R9X since August 2020. Back then, a US leg team used it to eliminate Abu Yahya al-Uzbeki, a military trainer. Al-Uzbeki aligned with terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Hurras Al-Din.