The Hellfire missile is the primary 100-pound (45 kg) class air-to-ground precision weapon for the armed forces of the United States and many other countries.

[14] The development of the Hellfire Missile System began in 1974 with the United States Army requirement for a "tank-buster", launched from helicopters to defeat armored fighting vehicles.

It also works in adverse weather and battlefield obscurants, such as smoke and fog, which can mask the position of a target or prevent a designating laser from forming a detectable reflection.

It uses a semi-active laser homing guidance system and a K-charge multipurpose warhead[21][22] to engage targets that formerly needed multiple Hellfire variants.

[25][26] In 2009, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) acknowledged that Army Air Corps (AAC) AgustaWestland Apaches had used AGM-114N Hellfire missiles against Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

"[28] AGM-114 Hellfire missiles were used to kill Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in 2004,[29][30] and by the US military to kill American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011,[31] Al-Qaeda operative Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan in 2012, al-Shabaab militant Mukhtar Abu Zubair in Somalia in 2014,[32] and British ISIL executioner Mohammed Emwazi (also known as "Jihadi John") in Syria in 2015.

The first operational air-to-air kill with a Hellfire took place on 24 May 2001, after a civilian Cessna 152 aircraft entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon, with unknown intentions and refusing to answer or comply with ATC repeated warnings to turn back.

[39] A US official said that this was an inert "dummy" version of the Lockheed system stripped of its warhead, fuse, guidance equipment and motor, known as a "Captive Air Training Missile".