The US drops its most powerful non-nuclear bomb, the “mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan, on Thursday (April 13th), according to a spokesman for the Pentagon.
The strike with the GBU-43 bomb of about 10,000 kilograms, targeted at about 14:30 GMT a “cave series” in Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan, where an American soldier was killed in an Operation last weekend against the jihadists.
This huge, multi-meter-long GPS bomb, which had never been used in combat before, was dropped in support of the Afghan and US forces operating in the region, according to the Pentagon.
“As their losses increase,” jihadists use “bunkers and tunnels to strengthen” their defense, said in a statement the General John Nicholson, the head of the US forces in Afghanistan.
The GBU-43 bomb is the right ammunition to overcome these obstacles and keep the momentum of our campaign “against the Islamic State group in Afghanistan,” he added.
“We have to deny their freedom of movement and that is what we have done,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a briefing to the press.
According to the US Air Force, the last test of the GBU-43 bomb in 2003 had caused a plume of dust and smoke visible at more than 32 kilometers.
The bomb is called MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) bomb with massive blast effect. The United States has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. They train, advice and support Afghan forces in their fight against the Taliban and the Islamic State group.
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