US drops 'mother of all bombs' on ISIL in Afghanistan

Mother of all bombs in Action

The moment the American military dropped “the mother of all bombs” on an Islamic State target in Afghanistan, killing 36 militants, was caught on video.

The footage, released by Washington on Friday, shows crosshairs hovering over a spot at the foot of a mountain range in the east of the country.

Within seconds, the largest non-nuclear bomb America has ever used in combat hurtles towards an Isil complex of caves and tunnels.

Smashing into the earth, it throws up a thick cloud of smoke as rubble flies through the air. Telegraph

Father of bombs Vs Mother of all Bombs

The US has dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat in eastern Afghanistan on a series of caves used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, according to the Pentagon.

The GBU-43 bomb was dropped on Thursday from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, said Adam Stump, a Pentagon spokesperson.

Also known as the “mother of all bombs”, the GBU-43 is a 9,797kg GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003, just days before the start of the Iraq war.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the strike was designed to minimise the risk to Afghan and US forces conducting clearing operations in the area.

But the ultra-heavy explosive – equal to 11 tonnes of TNT with a blast radius of 1.6km on each side – could potentially cause many civilian casualties.

‘Towering flames’

The non-nuclear bomb killed at least 36 fighters and destroyed a deep-tunnel complex of ISIL, Afghan officials said on Friday while ruling out any civilian casualties.

“As a result of the bombing, key Daesh [ISIL] hideouts and deep tunnel complex were destroyed and 36 IS fighters were killed,” the Afghan defence ministry said.

The bomb landed in the Momand Dara area of Achin district, according to Esmail Shinwari, the local governor. Aljazeera

The United States on Thursday used its second-largest non-nuclear weapon for the first time ever in combat, in a strike aimed at a tunnel complex used by forces aligned with the Islamic State in Afghanistan, the Defense Department said.

The strike dropped a GBU-43 bomb from an aircraft at 7:32 p.m. local time to destroy an Islamic State tunnel network in Nangarhar province, department spokesman Adam Stump said. The targeted group is known as the Islamic State in the Khorasan Province.

The 21,000-pound, GPS-guided bomb, also known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, has been nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.” It was last tested on March 11, 2003, when it caused a mushroom cloud that could be seen from 20 miles away.

Among U.S. non-nuclear bombs, the MOAB is topped in size only by the Air Force’s Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which the has never been deployed in combat. Both bombs are bunker-busters that would be potential weapons in any U.S. strike against underground nuclear facilities in countries such as Iran or North Korea.

The MOAB is considered better suited to attacks on underground tunnels because it creates a large concussion that can collapse them if it lands at the tunnels’ mouth, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The MOP is designed to break through concrete bunkers.

Later on Thursday, President Donald Trump called it “another successful job” and stressed his pride in the U.S. military. Asked if he had authorized use of the weapon, he responded that “everybody knows exactly what happened.”

“What I do is I authorize my military. We have the greatest military in the world, and they’ve done a job as usual. So we have given them total authorization, and that’s what they’re doing. And, frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately,” Trump said. Politico