An ear-splitting blast then it felt like the heavens were falling in

Villagers tell of terrifying impact of air strike that killed 36 IS men

WITH an ‘ear-splitting blast’ heard miles away, the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat left a crater more than 980ft wide after it was dropped by the US on Islamic State terrorists in Afghanistan.

As the repercussions of the Trump administration’s latest show of force were felt around the world, details of the huge bomb’s formidable force emerged yesterday.

Locals in villages miles away along the war-ravaged nation’s borders said they ‘felt like the heavens were falling’ as the bomb sent a huge fireball into the sky and made the ground shake.

The 21,600lb weapon – nicknamed the ‘mother of all bombs’ – set fire to the air around it as it exploded and vaporised anyone in the vicinity.

The Pentagon yesterday released aerial footage of Thursday’s attack, showing the 30ft bomb – a GBU-43B Massive Ordnance Air Blast or MOAB, the acronym that also gives it its nickname – speeding through the air before the huge explosion in a remote mountainous area of Nangarhar province, near the Pakistan border.

The Afghan ministry of defence said at least 36 IS terrorists hiding in underground tunnels were killed as the bomb released the equivalent of 11 tons of TNT at 7.32pm local time, and that the death toll could rise. Ammunition caches were also destroyed.

Pakistanis living near the Afghan border said the explosion was so loud they thought a bomb had been dropped on their own village by US planes.

Shah Wali, 46, who lives in Goor Gari, nine miles from the border with Nangarhar, said: ‘I was sleeping when we heard a loud explosion. It was an ear-splitting blast.

‘I jumped from my bed and came out of my home to see what has gone wrong in our village.’

Mufti Khan, a resident of Achin in Nangarhar, said: ‘ The whole house was shaking. When I came out of my house I saw a large fire and the whole area was burning.’

Another Achin resident, Mohammad Hakim, said: ‘ We are very happy and these kinds of bombs should be used in future as well, so Daesh is rooted out from here.’ Daesh is the Arabic name for IS.

Mr Hakim added: ‘They killed our women, youths and elders sitting them on mines. We also ask the Kabul government to use even stronger weapons against them.’ Mohammad Shahzadah, who was in another a nearby village, told the Guardian: ‘The earth felt like a boat in a storm. 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 MOAB is a ‘ther- mobaric’ weapon, setting the air on fire as it explodes 6ft above the ground and sucking in all the surrounding oxygen. It released such a huge blast wave, with a one-mile radius, it would have destroyed anything up to 200ft underground and set off small earthquakes.

General Daulat Waziri, a defence ministry spokesman, said the bombing was necessary because IS’s tunnel complex was extremely hard to penetrate, with some as deep as 130ft.

He said: ‘It was a strong position and four times we had operations attacking the site but it was not possible to advance.’ He added that the road leading to the complex ‘was full of mines’.

Inamullah Meyakhil, spokesman for the central hospital in eastern Nangarhar province, said it had received no dead or wounded. District governor Ismail Shinwari said there was no civilian property near the strike. The office of president Ashraf Ghani said they were careful to prevent civilian casualties.

The dropping of the bomb marked the fulfilment of an elec-

‘The whole area was burning’

tion promise by Donald Trump, who had said he ‘would bomb the s*** out of’ IS if he became president.

Mr Trump called Thursday’s operation a ‘very, very successful mission’.

On the evening of the bombing, the president arrived at his lavish Florida resort Mara-Lago, where he was greeted from the plane by flag-waving fans. He gave them a thumbs up as he left the aircraft.

He is expected to remain at Mar-a-Lago for Easter. President Trump was also at the resort when US missile strikes were carried out on a Syrian airbase last week, as a warning to the country’s leader Bashar al-Assad following a chemical attack on civilians.

Mr Trump was having an official dinner with Chinese president Xi Jinping as the missiles hit their target. He then conferred with top aides in a specially designed conference room before giving a speech announcing the strikes.

The president also had to carry out an impromptu strategy session on Mar-a-Lago’s dining patio earlier this year during a visit by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles.

Experts have warned Afghanistan is the most rapidly deteriorating conflict in the world, after UK and US troops pulled out in 2014 following a 13-year war. There have been heavy clashes between Afghan forces and IS fighters in the Nangarhar region.

US General John Nicholson, Nato commander in Afghanistan, said the bombing was purely tactical and part of a mission to destroy IS in the country by the end of the year.

He said the ‘entire world’ should be focused on Afghanistan because terrorism there was of a ‘grave concern’. He added: ‘ This is the right weapon for the right target.’

Despite many celebrating the bombing, some were outraged, saying Afghanistan should not be a ‘ testing ground’. The Site Intelligence Group, which tracks extrem- ist groups, reported a statement from the Afghan Taliban condemning the US for its ‘terrorist’ attack. The statement said it is the responsibility of Afghans, not the US, to remove IS from the country.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned the weapon’s use on Twitter.

He wrote: ‘I vehemently condemn the dropping of the latest weapon, the largest non-nuclear bomb, on Afghanistan by US military.

‘This is not the war on terror but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons.’

IS’s news agency Amaq denied that the strike caused any IS deaths or injuries in a one-line statement put out on its social media channels.