The Slash ZAKU Warrior is the close combat configuration of the ZGMF-1000 ZAKU Warrior achieved through the use of the back-mounted EX-K Slash Wizard. In addition to the standard armaments of the ZAKU Warrior, the Slash ZAKU Warrior is armed with two MMI-M826 "Hydra" Gatling beam cannons as well as a MA-MR Falx G7 beam axe, which is possibly the strongest melee weapon available to the ZAKU Warrior. The Slash ZAKU Warrior is one of the lightest configuration of the ZAKU Warrior and this allows it to stay mobile during close combat.
The ZAKU Warrior was one of the machines in the "New Millennium Series" that was developed to cope with the technological and numerical restrictions placed on various superpowers as part of the Junius Treaty signed after the First Alliance-PLANT War. When the Second Alliance-PLANT War broke out between ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, the ZAKU Warrior and its higher performance sibling, the ZGMF-1001 ZAKU Phantom, were deployed alongside older mobile suits.