A recent report from the Wall Street Journal confirmed rumors that a secret new weapon, known as a "flying ginsu" or "ninja bomb", was developed by the Department of Defense, designed and built by Lockheed Martin engineers and used against individual targets in at least two confirmed cases by both the CIA and the Pentagon in the last three years.
The weapon is an altered Hellfire missile, whose original purpose was to serve as an anti-tank weapon in the 1980s. After 9/11, unmanned attack aircraft were equipped with Hellfire missiles and used against targets in the Middle East. During the Obama administration, drone strikes increased exponentially and unnecessary civilian casualties were the subject of a report from Ben Emmerson, special investigator for the United Nations Human Rights Council. Emmerson reported that U.S. drone strikes may have violated international humanitarian law due to a high civilian casualty rate. The Intercept reported that "Between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes [in northeastern Afghanistan] killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets."
The design evolution of the Hellfire turned into the Hellfire R9X, whose defining feature is a ring of six blades that deploy right before a payload of 100 lbs of metal strikes the target from the sky without exploding. Designed to puncture through automotive vehicles and buildings, the Hellfire R9X's inert warhead was designed to decrease collateral damage and minimize civilian casualties under orders from the Obama administration.
Though details are sketchy, what is known is that the Hellfire R9X has been in development since 2011 and is very rarely used. The WSJ was able to confirm that the Hellfire R9X has been used twice. In 2017, it was used against Egyptian national Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri (pictured above), second-in-command of the al Qaeda in Idlib Province by a CIA-operated aircraft. In 2019, the weapon was used against Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni al Qaeda operative who the Pentagon alleged was behind the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole at a Yemeni port, which killed 17 US sailors.
Lockheed Martin and Missile Design
Though precise data about how the Hellfire RX9 works is obviously unavailable, information about the Hellfire missile is relatively plentiful. The Apache attack helicopter and the MQ-1 Predator drone both share the Hellfire AGM 114, the RX9's predecessor, as their primary weapons. A good way to think of these missiles is as though each were a small unmanned aircraft. The Hellfire has a guidance computer, propulsion system and steering control with a high-explosive payload and copper-lined warhead powerful to penetrate the armor of any tank in the world. Both the Apache and the MQ-1 Predator share design characteristics: the missiles are carried on firing rails connected to pylons mounted on each wing. Prior to launching, the original Hellfire missile would receive instructions from the Apache's computer, including the fire signal. After the fire signal is received, the missile's propellant is activated and burned until approximately 500 pounds of force are generated. Then the missile breaks away from its rail, and begins accelerating. The force of acceleration triggers an arming mechanism and as soon as the missile's impact sensor comes into contact with the target, the warhead is exploded. In a previous version of the Apache Hellfire system, a laser guidance system for the missile worked like this: the Apache gunner aimed a high-intensity laser beam with a unique coded pattern that pulses on and off. The Apache computer transmits the laser pulse pattern to the missile prior to firing, and the missile's laser seeker (built into the nose) that detects the reflected laser light and heads straight towards it. The guidance system makes course corrections by moving the flight fins of a Hellfire missile.
The problem is that cloud cover or other obstructions can block the laser beam, and if the missile goes through cloud cover, it can lose track of the target. The Hellfire II fixed these problems by using a radar seeker. The chopper's radar finds the target, and the missiles zero in on it. Radio waves aren't obscured by clouds, making the likelihood of a precise strike greater.
Presumably the Hellfire RX9 works in a similar manner, although it's easy to suspect that there's a lot more geolocation data involved to maintain such precision.