You can read this article in German. LINK
On December 30, a U.S. drone strike hit the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib, where a number of terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are active.
The strike targeted a mini truck that was passing on a road between the towns of Salqin and Isqat in northern Idlib. The two towns are located a few kilometers away from the border line with Turkey.
Photos from the strike scene show what appears to be the remains of an AGM-114R9X missile. Dubbed “Ninja Bomb”, the missile is a Hellfire variant armed with a kinetic warhead with pop-out blades, meant to reduce collateral damage. Deployed in secret since 2017, with existence revealed in 2019.
Update2: The R9X’s blade with the distinctive cut-outs can be seen in the scene of today’s drone strike near Salqin. pic.twitter.com/PF8Eguxoe6
— Within Syria (@WithinSyriaBlog) December 30, 2020
The laser-guided missile missed its target. The White Helmets said one person was injured as a result of the strike. The identity of the said individual was not revealed.
إصابة شخص بجروح، عصر اليوم الأربعاء 30 كانون الأول، نتيجة استهداف طيران مجهول الهوية، سيارة على الطريق الواصل بين مدينة سلقين وبلدة إسقاط بريف إدلب الشمالي الغربي، عملت فرق الدفاع المدني السوري على تفقد مكان الغارة وتأمينه لحماية المدنيين.#الخوذ_البيضاء pic.twitter.com/DSdSwhhBR8
— الدفاع المدني السوري (@SyriaCivilDefe) December 30, 2020
U.S. drones have been hunting jihadists in Greater Idlib for a while now. In the last two years, many senior leaders of al-Qaeda were killed in drone strikes, most of them carried out with the state-of-the-art AGM-114R9X.
The U.S. is, however, ignoring Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the largest al-Qaeda-linked faction and de-facto ruler of Greater Idlib. Many of those being killed are in fact inner enemies of the faction and its leader – Abu Mohamad al-Julani.
this occurred near Chicago—BLM drone targeted antifa/LGBT minivan
Us should leave the desert ppl alone and concentrate on china.Desert assholes will kill each other anyway lol.
Not a single dead sheep. The sheeple always get away without being hurt……………………..LOL.
The US is likely attempting to wipe out the independent terrorists who will not align with the ‘US Preferred Terrorists’. :)
It certainly looks like it doesn’t .” Many of those being killed are in fact inner enemies of the faction and its leader – Abu Mohamad al-Julani. ” ( HTS )
Missed the target huh, shame it didn’t have a conventional warhead or it might have hit. I wonder what the success-rate of this ‘ninja-bomb’ actually is? It would have to hit almost dead-on top of it’s victim to kill, so I could imagine it missing a few times. No data to back that claim up of course, all classified I guess.
The absence of data tells the real story, they have a 100% success rate, otherwise the unsuccessful weapons would be on display, the Jihadists would probably use them as trophies and invite the world media to take all the photos they wanted, but there’s none on display yet.
Not really, the missiles would still be destroyed on impact no matter what they hit.
These missiles are never completely destroyed on impact, and ALWAYS have ninja blades left intact to some degree or another to be found as evidence, there are many accounts of their use in Idlib. With the right tools and info you can find out what type of missile it is no matter what type of warhead was used or how badly damaged and disintegrated it is, the evidence is ALWAYS left behind.
The US mostly targets Guardians of the Religion factions and so do the Russians, and that’s because all the terrorist factions and even the moderate opposition factions that are still opposed to resolution 2254 ALL have to go. These groups are ALL militarily and financially supported by Turkey, but they’re also ALL totally opposed to Turkey’s cooperation with Russia, so that’s one problem for Erdogan, on top of that they’re also ALL totally opposed to resolution 2254, but strangely they ALL fight for the Turkish backed Syrian Interim Government, which is not only the biggest proponent of resolution 2254, but also the biggest benefactor of resolution 2254, so Erdogan has another massive problem sorting that out. And since Erdogan can’t just do his own dirty work and innoxiously get rid of the problem makers himself, he needs outside parties to do that [like the US, Russia and HTS], he doesn’t want their blood on his hands, at least not directly, it’s not a good look when the leader starts killing off some of his argumentative commanders. So far it’s just the Turkish backed Al Qaeda factions being targeted and some of HTS’s allies like the TIP, but HTS itself has been on a reprieve for 9 months now, and the reason they’ve had a reprieve from US, and to a certain extent Russian attacks is the simple fact they’re doing the US, Turkey, Russia, and Iran’s dirty work for them, so they’re actually a very useful tool at the moment, [Russia claims it’s attacking HTS but instead it attacks TIP]. HTS has been arresting and killing quite a few leaders from the Guardians of the Religion/Rouse the Believers Operations Room factions lately, but some of them are lucky and they get to sit down and talk with HTS, and the talk always goes something like this, ‘give up Jihad and enter the political process because resolution 2254 is the answer, if you don’t you know what happens’. That’s been the case from the end of March right up until about a week ago, but last week something happened that might change everything, the US just told HTS they weren’t going to change their minds and include HTS in the 2254 political process, or change their terrorist status, so that no longer leaves HTS any incentive to keep doing what they have been doing, trying to gain moderate opposition status by getting rid of the Jihadists . The way I see it now HTS only has 2 options, either go hard or go home. If they go home they’ll reinstitute their ties to the Jihadist factions and start to actively attack the SAA again, but if they go hard they’ll instead attack and wipe out all the Jihadist factions [apart from their own allies like TIP], in a last ditch attempt to sway the US into changing their minds. Hopefully they take the second option but I think there’s just as much incentive to follow the first one. Resolution 2254 is the proverbial turd in the stew, you can’t see it in your bowl but you can still smell it or worse still taste it.