Two Hellfire missiles fired from a drone killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and caused surprisingly little off-target damage. The Reuters agency writes that they may be a stealth version of the missiles and that the US is using them to avoid civilian casualties.
A senior administration official told reporters that two "hellfire" missiles were fired at Zawahiri from an unmanned aerial vehicle. US officials said no one else was killed or injured in the attack.
The aforementioned missiles, mostly manufactured by Lockheed Martin, are precision-guided munitions for air-to-ground attacks that otherwise cause massive damage, demolish buildings, and kill or seriously injure anyone in the vicinity.
Photos of the attack posted on social media show the features of a modified "hellfire" missile with six target-damaging blades called the "R9X," sources familiar with the details of the weapon said. It is mainly used against individual targets, such as militants in Syria.
Photos show destroyed windows on the second floor, while the structure of the house remained intact despite being hit by "hellfire" missiles.
Officials believe the "R9X" is unlikely to cause civilian casualties because instead of exploding, the missile slices through targets with sharp blades.
Reuters writes that the "MQ-9 Reaper" manufactured by "General Atomics" is the only drone that is publicly known to carry "hellfire" missiles.
Who could be the new leader of Al Qaeda?
Al-Zawahiri was killed while standing on the terrace of his home in central Kabul, Afghanistan, US officials said. It is the biggest blow to the extremist group since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
White House spokesman John Kirby said the US has no DNA confirmation of Zawahiri's death. "We're not going to get that confirmation," Kirby told CNN, describing "visual confirmation" along with other sources.
A senior administration official told reporters that US intelligence had determined with "high certainty" that Zawahiri had been killed.
Kirby also said there was little al Qaeda presence left in Afghanistan.
"We will continue to be vigilant," Kirby told MSNBC, adding that the US has the capacity to launch a counter-terrorism strike from afar.
"The message was sent very, very clearly not just to Al Qaeda, but to anyone who might harbor them."
There is already speculation about who could take over the management of the militant organization, and according to experts, there are three key candidates.
Saif al-Adel
A mysterious, secretive former Egyptian special forces officer, he is a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda.
The US is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Al-Adel was suspected of involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and left the country in 1988 to join the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
One of al Qaeda's top military chiefs, often described as the network's third-ranking official, al-Adel helped plan the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and established training camps for the organization in Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Al-Adel's diary was found in 2004 during a raid in Saudi Arabia. In Al Qaeda, he played the role of trainer, military leader and member of Bin Laden's security.
Before joining Al Qaeda, he was a member of the Egyptian organization Islamic Jihad, which aimed to overthrow the government.
Al-Adel is linked to the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002, according to a report by US investigators. Al-Adel was revealed to have discussed Pearl's kidnapping with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Al-Adel was named interim leader of Al Qaeda after Bin Laden's assassination.
Yezid Mebarek
Yazid Mebarek, known as Abu Ubajda Yusuf al-Anabi, became the emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2020, when his predecessor was killed in a French attack, after leading one of the group's leadership councils and being a member of the other.
An Algerian national, Mebarek ran AQIM's media operations and in 2013 called for global strikes on French targets in a video after Paris sent troops to help quell a militant insurgency in Mali.
Mebarek, 53, is a veteran of Algeria's 1990s civil war between the government and Islamist forces, rising to the top of the GSPC breakaway militant group.
AQIM has taken advantage of the chaos across the Sahel region to become one of the most active and respected branches of the global network, kidnapping Westerners and staging attacks across the territory.
AQIM's importance to Al Qaeda is underscored by the fact that Mebarek's predecessor as chief, Abdelmalek Droukdel, had a role in the global movement's leadership team under Zawahiri, before he was killed by French forces in 2020.
But analysts believe AQIM has lost influence to newer militant groups in the Sahel, one of the world's most important theaters of jihadist activity, and Mebarek is said to be suffering from old injuries and lacks Droukdel's charisma.
Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi
The FBI is looking for this native Moroccan in connection with his membership in Al Qaeda. He studied programming in Germany before moving to Afghanistan, where he was chosen to run al Qaeda's main media wing, according to the FBI. Al-Magrebi is Zawahiri's son-in-law and a senior Al Qaeda leader.
Documents uncovered in the operation that killed Bin Laden showed that Al-Magrebi had been a rising star in the group for years. He was the main leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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