'THE 'MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS'
US ‘kills 36 ISIS fighters’ after dropping
21,000lb MOAB bomb – the largest ever non-nuclear weapon that can kill all
within 300metres – on caves in Afghanistan
Military sources say the bomb had to
be 'kicked out' the back of a US Air Force MC-130 cargo plane due to its
colossal size
THE US has
dropped the military’s largest non-nuclear weapon – nicknamed the
‘Mother Of All Bombs’ – on ISIS caves in Afghanistan killing 36 jihadi
fighters.
The 21,000lb
GBU-43/B, containing 11 tons of explosives, was deployed for the first time in
combat to destroy a complex of caves and tunnels hiding ISIS ants.
TWITTER /
U.S. AIR FORCE
The GBU-43/B heads towards its target
carrying 11 tons of explosives
The huge explosion as the bomb
destroys the stronghold in Afghanistan
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air
Blast bomb, aka, the ‘Mother Of All Bombs’
U.S. Air Force drops the MOAB bomb,
destroy ing the Khorasan group stronghold in Afghanistan
Afghani officials
have now revealed the attack left 36 fighters dead and not one civilian casualty.
The local Ministry
of Defence said in a statement that several ISIS caves and ammunition caches
were destroyed.
"I want a
hundred times more bombings on this group," said Hakim Khan, 50, a
resident of Achin district in Nangarhar province where the bombing took place.
The US military
headquarters in Kabul said the bomb was dropped at about 4pm UK time on a
tunnel complex Nangarhar, where the Afghan affiliate of the ISIS has been
operating.
The target was close to the Pakistani
border and some Pakistan residents nearby said they heard the explosion.
How they drop the 'Mother'
The US estimates
600 to 800 IS fighters are present in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar.
It has concentrated
heavily on combating them while also supporting Afghan forces battling the Taliban.
President Donald
Trump called the operation a "very, very successful mission."
The Air Force calls
it the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, nicknamed
"Mother Of All Bombs", which was used to "reduce IS obstacles
and maintain the momentum against jihadists in the region".
It can kill
everyone within 300 metres of the drop site.
Today US
President Donald Trump hailed the mission as "very,
very successful."
The explosion was the biggest I have
ever seen. Towering flames engulfed the area.
Achin
District GovernorEsmail Shinwari
It was the first
time the United States has used this size of bomb against an enemy.
The MOAB left
behind a crater thought to be more than 300 meters wide after it exploded six
feet above the ground.
District governor
of where the bomb hit, Esmail Shinwari, said: "The explosion was the
biggest I have ever seen. Towering flames engulfed the area.
"We don't know
anything about the casualties so far, but since it is a Daesh (IS) stronghold
we think a lot of Daesh fighters may have been killed."
h
US military drops 'Mother of All
Bombs' on ISIS targets in Afghanistan
Speaking at the
White House, Trump told of his pride over the mission - after vowing to "bomb the s**t" out of ISIS when
he was running for President.
He said: “That was
really another successful job — we are very, very proud of our military.
"What I do is
authorise my military.
“We have the
greatest military in the world and they have got it done as usual. We have
given them total authorisation.
“That is why they
have been so successful lately.”
REUTERS
A US Air Force plane releases an MOAB
explosive device test in 2003
Archive footage shows the bomb being
dropped
White House
press secretary Sean Spicer said that the bomb was used on "a system
of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely making it
easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the
area".
He added: "The
United States takes the fight very seriously and in order to defeat the group
we must deny them operations space, which we did.
The United States takes the fight
very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operations
space, which we did.
White
House Press SecretarySean Spicer
"The United
States took all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties as a
result of the operation."
Mr Spicer declined
to comment on whether or not the US would consider using it on North Korea in
the future.
He also
refused to say whether or not President Trump personally authorised the
use of the device.
GETTY IMAGES
White House Press Secretary Sean
Spicer said the US 'takes the fight very seriously'
GETTY IMAGES
It's not known whether or not
President Trump personally authorised the use of the device
In a statement US
Central Command said that the bomb was dropped at 7.32pm local time in Achin
district, Nangarhar province in Eastern Afghanistan.
The statement said
that the "strike was designed to minimise the risk to Afghan and US Forces
conducting clearing operations in the area while maximising the destruction of
ISIS fighters and facilities".
It's a concussive blast. Everyone in
the area is obliterated, ears are bleeding, or they're completely destroyed.
Military
Source
When unleashed, the
30ft weapon causes a huge shockwave after the explosion - collapsing tunnels
and killing everyone within hundreds of metres.
One official said:
"It's a concussive blast. Everyone in the area is obliterated, ears are
bleeding, or they're completely destroyed."
It's believed the
Afghan government was aware of the US plan to bomb the IS tunnel complex.
Presidential
spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said on Facebook: "Heavy casualties
have been inflicted on the enemy."
What is a MOAB bomb?
·
The
bomb is known officially as a GBU-43B or massive ordnance air blast weapon.
·
Based
on the acronym, it has been nicknamed the "Mother Of All Bombs."
·
The
weapon weighs 21,000lbs, unleashes 11 tons of explosives, is more
than 30ft long and made of aluminium.
·
It
was rapidly developed in the early 2000s around the time of the US-led
invasion of Iraq.
·
The
bomb is deployed using a parachute and uses four grid shaped fins and GPS
positioning to hit the target.
·
The
Pentagon did a formal review of legal justification for its combat use.
·
The
GBU-43/B is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat.
·
The
first time it was ever used in warfare was in a US Air Force attack on April 13
2017 when it was dropped on a cave complex believed to be used by ISIS fighters
in the Achin district of Nangarhar province in Aghanistan.
·
It
has a two-stage detonation powered by H6 explosive.
·
The
first blast spreads highly flammable aluminum dust, while the second is the
baric blast.
·
It
sucks oxygen out from cave tunnels before quickly becoming a shock wave.
·
If
you are within the blast radius it is most likely you will be vapourised, but
those who escape with their lives will suffer massive internal damage
to the ears, lungs and stomach.
·
Each
bomb costs around £12.8 million
General John W.
Nicholson, Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, said: "As ISIS losses
have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their
defence.
"This is the
right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our
offensive against ISIS."
The army targeted
the Achin district of Nangarhar province five days after US Special Forces
Staff Sergeant Mark De Alencar was reportedly killed by ISIS in the area.
US ARMY
Army Staff Sgt. Mark De Alencar was
killed Saturday when his unit came under fire in eastern Afghanistan
REUTERS
A Massive Ordnance Air Blast
(MOAB) bomb, explodes November 21, 2003 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida
Military sources
say the bomb had to be "kicked" out the back of a US Air Force MC-130
cargo plane due to its colossal size.
"We kicked it
out the back door," one U.S. official told Fox News.
REUTERS
This was the first test of the
21,000-pound MOAB explosive device nicknamed the mother of all bombs
The GBU-43 is a
21,600 pound GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003 - just days
before the start of the Iraq war.
General John
Nicholson, who heads US Forces Afghanistan, described the weapon as the
"right munition" to reduce IS obstacles and maintain the momentum
against jihadists in the region.
The US military had
tested the bomb for a decade and had been waiting for an appropriate target to
deploy it.
How does an MOAB bomb compare to a
nuclear weapon?
IT has been dubbed the mother of all bombs, but is the
GBU-43/B really more powerful than a nuclear weapon?
The MOAB is hailed
as America's most powerful non-nuke. But despite the fact it will kill everyone
within 300metres, the MOAB is nowhere near as dangerous as atomic bombs, with
only a yield blast of 0.011 KT. In fact the level of damage caused by a nuclear
weapon and an MOAB differs by a factor of 1,000. However, the pair do a share a
blast radius of around one mile. Nuclear bombs release nuclear radition and
heat, which produces a much larger amount of energy. Some research shows that a
single, small nuclear bomb releases as much energy as 40,000 non-nuclear bombs
like the MOAB. Conventional bombs are weaker because they only have a chemical
reaction when set off. The 1.2 megaton B-83 is one of the largest nukes in
the current US arsenal. Just milliseconds after detonation 19,000 pounds
of highly complex explosive enegry is released - causing a barometric shock.
Known as 'overpressure' the shock moves at the speed of sound away from ground
zero.
The bombing sent a
powerful message to President Trump's foes in Russia and North Korea -
which is said to be on the verge of a sixth nuclear test.
Russia constructed
a device four times as powerful as the MOAB in 2007 but President Putin is yet
to use it in combat.
REX FEATURES
ir Force workers preparing the
Massive Ordnance Air Blast weapon for testing
GETTY IMAGES
White House Press Secretary Sean
Spicer tells reporters the US military on Thursday dropped what is considered
to be the largest non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State complex in Afghanistan
CNN reported that
it had secretly been stored in Afghanistan and would have been deployed from a
C-130 Hercules military cargo aircraft.
The bomb is so
heavy it is essentially pushed out the back.
Video of the MOAB
being tested in 2003 shows a huge mushroom cloud going up into the air after
one of the blasts.
GETTY IMAGES
Successful testing of GBU-43 bomb at
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida
Military analyst
Col Rick Francona said that it would "feel like a nuclear weapon to those
in the area".
He said: "The
pressure would send shockwaves through the tunnel systems and would kill
everyone in the tunnels."
Col Francona said
that anyone in a range of "hundreds of metres" would be killed.
AP:ASSOCIATED
PRESS
Donald Trump is yet to comment on the
mother of all bombs being dropped in Afghanistan
US forces have
conducted a number of air strikes on jihadist bases in the area since August
last year.
IS, notorious for
its reign of terror in Syria and Iraq, has been making inroads into Afghanistan
in recent years.
It has attracted
disaffected members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban as well as Uzbek
Islamists.
But the group has
been steadily losing territory in the face of heavy pressure both from US air
strikes and a ground offensive led by Afghan forces.
The Islamic State
group's strength in Afghanistan has fallen to 600 to 800 fighters from 3,000 in
early 2016, NATO has said, adding that it killed the top 12 IS commanders in
the country last year.
How is the MOAB launched?
·
The
'mother of all bombs' has special 'grid' fins that open up in flight to help
control its descent to land.
·
Due
to its size - 30ft long and 40 inches wide - it can only be launched from the
back of a large cargo plane and sits on a special 'pallet'.
·
On
launch, it drops out of the plane with a parachute and 'rides' on the pallet until
the two separate - and the bomb drops on its target.
·
It
is guided onto its target via satellite and explodes 6ft above the ground -
creating an 'airburst' explosion effect.
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