Politics & Government
U.S. Drops 'Mother Of All Bombs' On Afghanistan
The announcement was made on the same day that the U.S.-led coalition in Syria accidentally killed 18 members of Syria Democracy Forces.
The U.S. Air Force on Thursday dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in a military action, targeting an ISIS tunnel complex in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, officials said. No information was provided about the number of militants killed.
"As ISIS-K's losses have mounted, they are using IEDS, bunkers, tunnels to thicken their defense," said the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, using another name for the Islamic State of Afghanistan. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K." (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)
A statement from U.S. Central Command said that the military took "every precaution" to protect civilians from the attack. It added that the "offensive operations" will persist until the destruction of ISIS in Afghanistan is achieved.
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"The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction," the statement said.
"The GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, a 30-foot-long, 21,600 pound munition known as the 'mother of all bombs,' has never before been used in combat," wrote W.J. Wennigan in the L.A. Times. The bomb is called a MOAB for short. The bomb was dropped from an MC-130, a cargo plane with a rear door.
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Similar bombs were used by the United States to destroy networks of tunnels and caves believed to be used by forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but this is believed to be the first used against the below-ground operations of ISIS.
The bombing came on the same day Central Command revealed that an airstrike led by the American-led coalition Tuesday to fight ISIS in Syria killed 18 members of the Syrian Democracy Forces, a group allied with the United States.
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Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images
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