Originally Posted by
OldLurker
What did the Air Force hit him with? Report says "two hellfire missiles". That'd be two big bangs. But photos of the house seem to show it more or less intact. Unarmed Hellfire? Surely not.
Hellfire Ninja - it has a 100 pound (or so) block of metal and a bunch of actuated blades that pop out just before reaching the target to Ginsu knife whoever is standing in the immediate vicinity that the block of metal manages to miss.
Reports indicate the development was started under Obama, who was looking for a device that would not cause massive collateral damage to those even a short distance away from the target. The previous experiences of obliterating dozens of people surrounding a target had spoiled the political view - basically even though the person being targeted had slaughtered innocents by the dozens to thousands, it was considered poor form to do the same to immediate friends and family of the terrorist.
So this was created to be far more specific.
Years ago I saw footage of the FOG-M system. Even with a completely inert demonstrator one could chose which passenger in a car would get the brunt of the damage. I expect this is similarly fine tuned.