36 IS fighters killed by US bomb

Kabul, April 14 

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The top US military commander in Afghanistan said on Friday that the decision to deploy one of the largest conventional bombs ever unleashed in combat was a purely tactical decision made as part of the campaign against Islamic State-linked fighters.

As many as 36 suspected Islamic State militants were killed in the strike on Thursday evening, Afghan defence officials said, adding there were no civilian casualties.

The strike came as US President Donald Trump dispatches his first high-level delegation to Kabul, amid uncertainty about his plans for the nearly 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Nicknamed “the mother of all bombs,” the weapon was dropped from an MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar bordering Pakistan.

Nicholson said he was in constant communication with officials in Washington, but the decision to use the 21,600-pound (9,797-kg) GBU-43 bomb was based on his assessment of military needs and not broader political considerations.

“This was the first time that we encountered an extensive obstacle to our progress,” he said of a joint Afghan-US operation that has been targeting Islamic State since March. It was the right time to use it tactically against the right target on the battlefield.”

Afghan and US forces were at the scene of the strike and reported that the “weapon achieved its intended purpose,”, Nicholson said.

Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said no civilians were harmed in the massive blast that targeted a network of caves and tunnels that had been heavily mined.

“No civilian has been hurt and only the base, which Daesh used to launch attacks in other parts of the province, was destroyed,” Waziri said in a statement. He was using an Arabic term that refers to Islamic State, which has established a small stronghold in eastern Afghanistan and launched deadly attacks on the capital, Kabul. The GBU-43 is a GPS-guided munition that had never before been used in combat since its first test in 2003, when it produced a mushroom cloud visible from 32 km away.

The bomb’s destructive power, equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, pales in comparison with the relatively small atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War-II, which had blasts equivalent to between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of TNT. At a village about 5 km from the remote, mountainous area where the bomb was dropped, witnesses said the ground shook, but homes and shops appeared unaffected.

American officials said the bomb had been positioned for possible use in Afghanistan for “some time” since the administration of former president Barack Obama. — Reuters

Trump hails US military for targeting IS

• Everybody knows exactly what happened, what I do is I authorise our military. We have the greatest military in the world, they’ve done a job, as usual, so we have given them total authorisation and that’s what they’re doing, and frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately
• I don’t know if this sends a message. It doesn’t make any difference if it does or not. North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of. I will say this: I think China has really been working very hard

Attack part of joint op by Afghan, foreign troops

• Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement the attack was a part of a joint operation by Afghan and international troops. “Afghan and foreign troops closely coordinated this operation and were extra cautious to avoid any civilian casualties,” it said.
• But former president Hamid Karzai condemned the use of the weapon on Afghan soil. “This is not the war on terror, but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons,” he said on social media network Twitter.
• The Taliban also denounced the bombing. “Using this massive bomb cannot be justified and will leave a material and psychological impact on our people,” the Taliban, who compete with IS in Afghanistan

Unraveling ‘mother of all bombs’ 

Exploding above the ground

• Described by the US Air Force as its “largest non-nuclear conventional weapon”, the 9,840 kg Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), also dubbed the Mother of All Bombs, is packed with 11 tons of high explosives
• The MOAB is not a bunker buster built for deep penetration, but is designed to explode just above the ground, flattening surfaces structures, destroying mines and killing enemy troops within a radius of up to around 150 metres
• The Russian military says it has tested a more powerful device, dubbed the “Father of all Bombs”, although there are no reports of it having been used in action

MOAB succeeded ‘Daisy Cutter’

• Designed in 2003 for use against Iraqi forces, the MOAB succeeded the Vietnam War-era, 15,000 pound BLU-82 “Daisy Cutter”
• They could flatten a 60-metre wide patch of jungle and destroy mines and other booby traps without leaving a crater
• Both the MOAB and Daisy Cutter are dropped from C-130 transport aircraft, with a parachute dragging a pallet holding the bomb out of the back
• The Daisy Cutter was used in the first Gulf War in 1991 and later in Afghanistan, including in the hunt for Osama bin Laden during the Battle of Tora Bora. It was taken out of service in 2008

British heritage

• The US Air Force’s big air blast bombs and its heavy bunker busters trace their origins back to “earthquake bombs” of World War-II designed by the British
• Also known as “Tallboy” and “Grand Slam”, the devices penetrated deep into the ground with hardened steel casings before exploding. The British Royal Air Force used them to attack strategic German targets
• The larger 22,000-pound Grand Slam became the US military’s T-14, spawning a generation of bunker busters