US hits Isis with biggest bomb strike yet
AFGHANISTAN: United States forces in Afghanistan dropped a 10,000kg bomb on Islamic State forces in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, the Pentagon announced, using the largest non-nuclear bomb employed in combat.
General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said the bomb was ‘‘the right munition’’ to use against the Islamic State because of the group’s use of roadside bombs, bunkers and tunnels.
The bomb, which is known as the GBU-43, is one of the largest air-dropped munitions in the US military’s inventory and was almost used during the opening salvos of the Iraq War in 2003.
By comparison, US aircraft commonly drop bombs that weigh 115kg to 900kg.
The US military has targeted similar complexes and dropped tens of thousands of bombs in Afghanistan, raising the question of why a bomb of this size was used yesterday.
It was unclear what the GBU-43 strike accomplished, as the bomb is not designed to penetrate hardened targets such as bunkers or cave complexes.
The Pentagon said that ‘‘US Forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike’’.
When asked about the bomb yesterday, President Donald Trump praised the military as the ‘‘greatest’’ in the world.
‘‘We have given them total authorisation, and that’s what they’re doing, and frankly that’s why they’ve been so successful lately,’’ he said.
The bomb marked the second time in a week that the Pentagon has launched a high-profile strike. Last Friday, the military targeted a Syrian airfield as retaliation for a chemical attack by President Bashar al-assad that killed scores of civilians.
A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan did not respond to a query regarding the bomb’s effects on its intended target, an Islamic State tunnel complex in Nangarhar province.
This particular bomb is not the biggest in the Pentagon’s nonnuclear arsenal. The larger 13,600kg GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, designed for destroying heavily fortified bunker complexes, has never been used outside a test environment. While the GBU-57 is heavier, the GBU-43 has a larger warhead and explosive yield.
The GBU-43 is an evolution of the unguided 6800kg BLU-82 bomb. First used in Vietnam, the C-130-launched BLU-82 was often dropped to turn patches of jungle into helicopter landing zones.
This earned the BLU-82 the nickname ‘‘daisy cutter’’. The BLU-82 was used multiple times in the early stages of the war in Afghanistan when US forces were closing in on Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora on the Afghan-pakistan border.
The use of the GBU-43 in eastern Afghanistan comes less than a week after a US Army Special Forces soldier was killed fighting in the same region.
Army Staff Sergeant Mark De Alencar, 37, was mortally wounded by small-arms fire last Saturday.
US and Afghan forces have been fighting Isis in Afghanistan since 2015.
Special Operations forces from the Army’s Ranger battalions as well as the Green Berets have conducted numerous operations to push militants out of their sanctuaries.
The Taliban, the insurgent group that has fought the US and the Afghan government since 2001, also clashes with Isis, although many of its members have defected to the terrorist group.
Last week, Navy Captain Bill Salvin, a spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, said that Isis in Afghanistan had lost more than half its territory and had 800 fighters spread between two provinces.
At the group’s peak strength in Afghanistan, it had more than 3000 fighters, according to the Pentagon. Salvin added that US forces had carried out more than 400 air strikes on the Isis since the year’s start.
There are 8500 US troops in Afghanistan, primarily split between counterterrorism operations and supporting the fledgling Afghan military.
There are also about 7000 Nato troops in the country responsible for helping train Afghan troops.
Officials at the Afghan Defence Ministry said they were first alerted to yesterday’s bomb attack through media reports.
‘‘We have nothing officially on this so far, but the goal this year is to annihilate Daesh in the east and any other part of Afghanistan,’’ ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
‘‘We will use whatever force that is available to us, together with Resolute Support, and with the maximum amount of caution so that we don’t cause civilian casualties,’’ he said.
Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal, spokesman for police forces in Nangarhar province, where the bomb was dropped, said that international and Afghan forces had ‘‘for days’’ been involved in operations against the Islamic State affiliate.
He also said he was not aware of the specific incident, which US forces said took place about 7.30pm local time.
Nangarhar’s Achin district is a stronghold of the local Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, which US officials say is made up of mostly Pakistani and Uzbek militants.
The group, which calls itself Khorasan Province, has struggled to expand beyond Achin and a handful of other districts in the east. – Reuters