‘It felt like the heavens were falling’: Afghans recall impact

his evening prayers, Mohammad Shahzadah closed the house gates and sat down for dinner. Then the blast came, engulfing the sky in flames and sending tremors through the ground.

“The earth felt like a boat in a storm,” Shahzadah said. “I thought my house was being bombed. Last year a drone strike targeted a house next to mine, but this time it felt like the heavens were falling. The children and women were very scared.”

The bomb was dropped in the mountains close to Moman village in an area called Asadkhel. About 1.5 miles away, in Shaddle Bazar where Shahzadah lives, the impact was palpable.

“My ears were deaf for a while. My windows and doors are broken. There are cracks in the walls,” he said.

A local security official said they had requested a large strike because fighter jets and drones had failed to destroy the tunnel complex. Some observers, however, questioned the necessity of deploying a weapon of that scale against a group whose estimated 600 to 800 fighters pose only a limited threat to the Afghan state.

“There is no doubt that Islamic State is brutal and that they committed atrocities. But I don’t see why the bomb was dropped,” said Achin mayor Naweed Shinwari.

‘RIGHT TIME’ TO USE BOMB: US GENERAL

The top US military commander in Afghanistan said on Friday the decision to deploy the bomb was a purely tactical decision made as part of the campaign against Is-linked fighters.

Afghan and US forces were at the scene of the strike and reported that the “weapon achieved its intended purpose,”, Nicholson said.