Assassin

Were you looking for the Halo 2 Vista achievement of the same name?

The Assassin Medal is awarded and achieved for meleeing an opponent from behind. It is available in all multiplayer gametypes and has a Bungie difficulty rating of 2 out of 10.

Description
It is represented by a ninja face on a eight-pointed star. After the player kills an opponent by meleeing the opponent in the back, a message appears on your screen that states: "You assassinated (player's name)". The Assassin Medal is also a medal in the Halo 3 campaign when Campaign Scoring is turned on and activated. There are some occurrences where direct frontal punches results in an assassination, while assassinations sometimes result in beatdowns due to the attacker meleeing to the side. An assassination can be gained by hitting the right shoulder whilst hitting the left will be a beatdown and not an insta-kill. In Halo: Reach the Assassin Medal is awarded only if you melee them from behind and go into the third person animation. Your screen will say "You Beat Down [players name]" when you don't go into third person.

Trivia

 * If a player assassinates three players on a Legendary Map Pack map, either Avalanche, Ghost Town, or Blackout, the achievement "Came...From...Behind" will be unlocked for 50 Gamerscore. Similarly the achievement can be earned on a Mythic Map Pack map, either Assembly, Orbital, Sandbox, Citadel, Heretic, or Longshore.
 * In Halo: Reach, a "beat down" is now a "pummel", a "beat down" is a melee in the back, and an "assassination" is holding the melee button behind a person and going into third person for an intricate death. Strangely, there is no medal for a third person assassination and the 'ninja' medal goes to the "beat down".