Afghanistan says massive U.S. bomb killed 36 militants from IS
Military helicopters continue assault in eastern part of country
PANDOLA, Afghanistan — A day after the United States dropped the largest non-nuclear weapon it has ever used in combat, U.S. military helicopters pounded a mountainside village in eastern Afghanistan on Friday in an ongoing operation against fighters loyal to the Islamic State.
Plumes of smoke were visible from several miles away as the airstrikes provided cover for Afghan commandos and U.S. advisers who have been locked in a two-week battle to clear a network of tunnels used by Islamic State militants — the target of the Thursday bombing.
The Massive Ordnance Air Blast — a 20,000-pound weapon dubbed the “mother of all bombs” — shot flames and smoke into the sky for more than four hours and marked a sharp escalation of U.S. operations against the Islamic State’s affiliate in South Asia.
Afghan officials said that 36 Islamic State militants were killed in the bombing. There were no immediate reports of civilian casualties, but local authorities said the fighting had prevented them from visiting the bomb site near the village of Shodal, perched above a valley of green fields and mud-brick houses in Nangarhar province, near the Pakistani border.
Many civilians left the farming village in recent weeks on orders from Afghan commandos, but a few have remained, reluctant to give up their land to Islamic State fighters holed up in the tunnels below a soapstone mine.
Before the bombing, four civilians had been killed in the previous week, said authorities in Achin district, which includes Shodal. The size of the bomb, with a blast radius of about one mile, raised concerns over civilian deaths — particularly because Islamic State fighters often build tunnels below residential houses to provide cover from drone strikes.
“I thought everything around was destroyed,” said Bashir Khan, a commando based at an Afghan military outpost in Pandola, across the valley from Shodal.
The blast was so huge that Maj. Khair Mohammad Safi, the police chief in Achin district, at first thought it was an explosion at his base — 2½ miles away.
Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul that American troops in the area had seen no sign of civilian casualties.