IS death toll from huge US bomb tops 90
>> JALALABAD: Afghan authorities yesterday reported a jump in fatalities from the United States military’s largest non-nuclear bomb, declaring some 90 Islamic State (IS) fighters dead, as US-led forces conducted clean-up operations over their mountain hideouts.
Dubbed the “Mother Of All Bombs”, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast was unleashed in combat for the first time on Thursday, hitting IS positions in a remote area of eastern Nangarhar province.
The unprecedented attack triggered global shockwaves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered a threat as big as the resurgent Taliban.
The bomb smashed the IS’s hideouts, a tunnel-and-cave complex that had been mined against conventional ground attacks, engulfing the remote area in a huge mushroom cloud and towering flames.
“At least 92 Daesh [IS] fighters were killed in the bombing,” Achin district governor Esmail Shinwari said yesterday.
Nangarhar provincial spokesman Attaullah Khogyani gave a toll of 90, far higher than the initial toll of 36 IS fighters given by Afghan officials.
Mr Shinwari insisted there were “no military and civilian casualties at all”, adding that Afghan commandos and American troops are carrying out clean-up operations in the area.
Security experts say IS had built their redoubts close to civilian homes, but the government said thousands of local families had already fled the area in recent months of fighting.
An elderly man who lives close to the bombing site in Achin’s Momand Dara area said the blast was so piercingly loud that his infant granddaughter was experiencing hearing loss.
The massive bomb was dropped after fighting intensified over the past week and US-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area.
A US special forces soldier was killed on April 8 in Nangarhar while conducting anti-IS operations.
“The enemy had created bunkers, tunnels and extensive mine fields, and this weapon was used to reduce those obstacles so that we could continue our offensive in Nangarhar,” Gen John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said on Friday.
President Ashraf Ghani threw his support behind the bombardment, saying it was “designed to support the efforts of the Afghan National Security Forces and US forces conducting clearance operations in the region”.
The bombing came only a week after US President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack, and as China warned of the potential for conflict amid rising US tensions with North Korea.
Mr Trump hailed the mission in Achin district as “very, very successful”. S
Some analysts, however, called the action “disproportionate”.
“The Trump administration made a lot of noise with this bomb, but the general state of play on the ground remains the same: The Taliban continues to wage a formidable and ferocious insurgency.
“Isis, by comparison, is a sideshow,” Michael Kugelman of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington said, using an alternative acronym for the IS.
Meanwhile, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are claiming success with the first in a new series of test flights involving an upgraded version of a nuclear bomb that has been part of the US arsenal for decades.
Work on the B61-12 has been ongoing for years, and government officials say the latest tests using mock versions of the bomb will be vital to the refurbishing effort.
An F-16 from Nellis Air Force Base dropped an inert version of the weapon over the Nevada desert last month to test its non-nuclear functions as well as the plane’s ability to carry the bomb.
With a mere puff of dust, the mock bomb landed in a dry lake bed at the Tonopah Test Range.
“It’s great to see things all come together: the weapon design, the test preparation, the aircraft, the range and the people who made it happen,’’ Anna Schauer, director of Sandia’s Stockpile Resource Center, said in a statement.
Scientists are planning to spend months analysing the data gathered from the test. Tracking telescopes, remote cameras and other instruments at the test range recorded information on the reliability, accuracy and performance of the weapon under conditions that were meant to replicate realworld operations.
More test flights are planned over the next three years, and officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration said the first production unit of the B61-12 — developed under what is called the Life Extension Program — is scheduled to be completed in 2020.
The B61-12 consolidates and replaces four older versions in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.