Big bomb said to kill 36 militants
Used for first time, 11-ton device whacks ISIS, not Taliban
KABUL, Afghanistan — The biggest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped in combat by the U.S. military killed 36 militants in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Friday.
The strike using the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, was carried out Thursday against an Islamic State group tunnel complex carved in the mountains that Afghan forces have tried to assault repeatedly in recent weeks in fierce fighting in Nangarhar province.
U.S. and Afghan forces have been battling the Taliban insurgency for more than 15 years. But the U.S. military used the GBU-43/B for the first time to hit the Islamic State group that has a smaller but growing presence in Afghanistan. The bomb, nicknamed the “mother of all bombs,” is so big that it’s rolled out the back of an MC130 Hercules cargo aircraft instead of being carried in a bomber’s internal bay or slung beneath the wings or fuselage.
While the GBU-43 weighing nearly 11 tons is the United States’ largest conventional bomb, it’s not the heaviest used in warfare nor the most powerful ever developed.
The 30-foot-long, 21,600-pound GBU-43 detonates with the force of 18,000 pounds of tritonal explosives. The GBU-43 initially falls with a parachute before a GPS system guides the bomb to its target. The munition detonates before it hits the ground, sending a lethal shock wave more than 1½ miles, as well as creating a mushroom cloud that roils high into the sky.
In terms of size, the British “Grand Slam” bomb — dropped by the British air force more than 40 times in the final months of World War II — measured 26 feet long and weighed 22,000 pounds. It sent a shock wave into the ground — the equivalent of a small earthquake — to damage or destroy buildings, bridges and other structures. Although heavier than the GBU-43, the Grand Slam delivered a smaller blast yield.
And, the most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever made comes from Russia, which in 2007 announced that it developed a bomb nicknamed “FOAB” — the father of all bombs — described as delivering a blast yield four times larger than the GBU-43, according to CNN.
For the U.S., the GBU43 is the successor to the 15,000-pound BLU-82 “Daisy-Cutter” bomb from the Vietnam era, which was used to clear trees from a 500-foot ground area so helicopters could land. That weapon was used in 1991 in the Gulf War against Iraq, later against Taliban and al-Qaida forces, and in Afghanistan for mine-clearing in 2001.
The GBU-43 is about 40 percent more powerful than the Daisy Cutter, which was dropped on the Tora Bora cave complex where al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden was said to be hiding in 2001.
The U.S. developed the BLU-118/B “Bunker Buster” in the early 2000s to penetrate underground targets. Its hard skin allowed it to go through more than 6 feet of concrete before it exploded. “Bunker Busters” were used on targets in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The GBU-43 was developed in 2002 to “put pressure on then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to cease and desist or the United States would not only have the means but use them against the unpopular tyrant,” the Air Force said in a 2008 news release. While it was tested at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, producing a mushroom cloud visible from 20 miles away, it was never used in Iraq.
Another U.S. munition, officially called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is designed to penetrate hardened bunkers. At 30,000 pounds, it is even heavier than the GBU-43 but carries less explosive power.
A video released Friday by the Pentagon showed a GBU43 striking a mountainside overlooking a river valley with a giant blast that sent up a huge column of black smoke.
The explosion was designed to send pulverizing pressure through the rocky labyrinth of tunnels, where Islamic State fighters were able to move without being detected by U.S. spy planes, U.S. officials said.
Although powerful, the size of that explosion pales in comparison to that of a nuclear bomb.
As former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said on Twitter, “The #MOAB explosive yield is 0.011 kilotons, typical nuclear yield is 10-180 kilotons — the US alone possesses over 7000 nuclear weapons.”
On Friday, the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement that the GBU-43 bomb destroyed several caves and ammunition caches used by the Islamic State.
Gen. Daulat Waziri, a ministry spokesman, said 36 Islamic State fighters were killed, and that the death toll could rise. He said Afghan forces were at the tunnel complex assessing the damage.
The Islamic State’s Aamaq news agency denied that any of its fighters were killed or wounded, citing a source within the group.
Waziri said the bombing was necessary because the complex was extremely hard to penetrate, with some tunnels as deep as 130 feet. He called it a “strong position,” with troops attacking it four times without advancing, adding that the complex “was full of mines.”
Not all Afghani officials supported the bomb’s use.
Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal, protested the U.S. attack Friday, posting on Twitter: “I find the use of the largest non-nuclear bomb, the so called ‘mother of all bombs,’ on our soil reprehensible and counterproductive. If big bombs were the solution we would be the most secure place on earth today.”