The missile used to kill Al-Zawahiri in Kabul was the Hellfire AGM-114 R9X. Don’t know the range of this missile, but the AGM-114R Hellfire II has a range of 11,000 meters. It was fired from a “Reaper Drone.” The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper is a UAV with a range of 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) and a cruise speed of 194 mph (313 kph).Â
Not sure where they operated this from, but there were a lot of options.
Wikipedia notes (bolding is mine):
The Hellfire R9X is a Hellfire variant with a kinetic warhead with pop-out blades instead of explosives, used against specific human targets. Its lethality is due to 45 kg (100 lb) of dense material with six blades flying at high speed, to crush and cut the targeted person — the R9X has also been referred to as the ‘Ninja Missile’ and ‘Flying Ginsu‘. It is intended to reduce collateral damage when targeting specific people. Deployed in secret in 2017, its existence has been public since 2019. This variant was used in the killings of Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi, accused mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing, and Abu Khayr al-Masri, a member of Al-Qaeda‘s leadership. The weapon has also been used in Syria, and in Afghanistan against a Taliban commander. It was used twice in 2020 against senior al-Qaeda leaders in Syria; in September 2020 US officials estimated that it had been used in combat around six times. Hellfire missiles fired by a Reaper drone were used on 31 July 2022 to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, who had previously been involved in planning the 9/11 and other attacks on US targets. It was reported that the missile hit him on a balcony, causing minimal collateral damage.Â
