Trump drops non-nuclear ‘mother of all bombs’ on Afghanistan

The United States on Thursday dropped a non nuclear bomb containing 11 tons of explosives on Afghanistan.

The explosive was dropped on an ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on the border with Pakistan.

A Pentagon spokesman told CBS News’ David Martin, that 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 which is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal has never before been used in combat.

The Pentagon said in a statement that “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 military also said the U.S. “took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike.”

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White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the strike targeted a “system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely.”
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.

 

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