The United States has dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat in Afghanistan.
Designed for destroying underground targets but not itself a deep-earth penetrator weapon, the GBU-43/B has the explosive yield of more than 11 tons of TNT, The Guardian said.
Mother of all bombs indeed!The much touted mother of all bombs weighing 20,000 pounds with a price tag of $16m per unit manufactured by the United States could only kill 13 suspected Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, after all.
The US military has dropped an enormous bomb in Afghanistan, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission.
The Afghan defence ministry said no civilians were affected by the bombing and the Kabul administration was kept in the loop regarding the attack. Last week, Army Staff Sgt. Mark R De Alencar, 37, was killed in an operation by U.S. Special Forces in Achin, which is close to the Pakistani border.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, primarily created to destroy underground targets, wiped out a large cache of weapons when it struck a network of caves used by the Isis.
Pakistani villagers living near the Afghan border said the explosion was so loud they thought a bomb had been dropped in their village by U.S. warplanes targeting terrorists in Pakistan.
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It said that its air strikes hit an arms depot containing toxic gas and blamed the rebels for storing such chemical materials.
But the group has been steadily losing territory in the face of heavy pressure both from United States air strikes and a ground offensive led by Afghan forces.
Thursday's strike came as U.S. President Donald Trump dispatches his first high-level delegation to Kabul, amid uncertainty about his plans for the almost 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan.
The U.S. estimates 600 to 800 IS fighters are present in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar.
Inamullah Meyakhil, spokesman for the central hospital in eastern Nangarhar province, said the facility had received no dead or wounded from the attack.
The commander of USA forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, said in a statement Thursday that it was the "right munition" to use to destroy the militants' network of tunnels in the area.
District Gov. Ismail Shinwari said there is no civilian property near the airstrike location.
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