The United States says its forces in Afghanistan have used the army's largest nonnuclear bomb on an Islamic State (IS) target in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
In an April 13 statement, the U.S. military said the GBU-43 bomb was dropped at 7:32 p.m. local time on an IS tunnel complex in Achin district, close to the border with Pakistan.
The Pentagon said it was the first-ever combat use of the GBU-43 bomb, which has been nicknamed the ‘mother of all bombs.’
The 9,797 kg GBU-43 bomb, which has 11 tons of explosives, was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said, according to Reuters.
A Pentagon spokesman said the bomb was dropped from an MC-130 transport plane.
The bomb targeted a system of tunnels and caves that IS fighters use to “move around freely, making it easier for them to target U.S. military advisers and Afghan forces in the area," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
Spicer also said all necessary precautions were taken to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage.
President Donald Trump reportedly touted the bombing as evidence of a more muscular U.S. foreign policy since he took office in January after eight years of President Barack Obama.
Reuters says Trump described the bombing as a “very successful mission.”
According to CNN, US and Afghan military officials are assessing the impact of a colossal US bomb dropped on IS tunnels in a remote part of Afghanistan, the most powerful non-nuclear weapon the US has in its arsenal.
The ‘mother of all bombs’ is capable of destroying an area of up to nine city blocks wide!
A local resident living around two kilometers from the blast told CNN he heard an “extremely loud boom that smashed the windows of our house.”
Officials said the IS extremist group, which has expanded into Afghanistan in recent years, was using a complex of caves and tunnels that were mined and fortified against conventional attack.
Afghanistan's Ambassador to the US, Hamdullah Mohib, said the bomb was dropped after fighting had intensified over the last week. US and Afghan forces had been unable to advance because IS militants had mined the area with explosives.
