The U.S. just dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on ISIS in Afghanistan
The U.S. dropped a bomb containing 11 tons of explosives on an ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on the border with Pakistan on Thursday, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed to CBS News’ David Martin.
US forces in Afghanistan dropped the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, known as the “Mother Of All Bombs,” over the Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, near northwest Pakistan.
The MOAB, which was developed during the Iraq War, is the US’s largest nonnuclear bomb and had not been used in combat until now. The 30-foot-long bomb weighs 21,000 pounds — 18,700 pounds of which is the warhead. It was dropped from a C-130 aircraft a little after 7 p.m. local time on Thursday.
According to conservativefighters.com:
The bomb is officially called a GBU-43 or Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), leading to its nickname as the “mother of all bombs.” The weapon is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal and has never before been used in combat.
“The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities,” the Pentagon said in a statement, using the term for the Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch.
The military also said the U.S. “took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike.”
The Afghanistan strike had been in the works for a number of months, Martin reports. The weapon was brought into Afghanistan specifically for this mission.
General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was required to get permission to use the weapon, but it’s unclear how far up the chain of command his request traveled.”
Details of the bomb have not been released, but here is an interesting tweet that explains the bomb’s objectives and some astounding specifications:
UPDATES COMING ~
Sources: Fox News, Department of Defense, Business Insider, H/T conservativefighters.com
