Vid shows it was a mother
THE PENTAGON on Friday released the first video of the United States’ largest nonnuclear bomb being dropped on an ISIS encampment in Afghanistan that killed at least 36 militants.
The 30-second recording captures the explosive — nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” — as it hit what military officials said was a network of caves and tunnels used by terrorists in the Nangarhar province.
Thursday’s colossal blast is shown rippling rapidly through the area once the 21,600-pound bomb makes contact — followed by a billowing smoke cloud.
“This was the right weapon for the right target,” U.S. Gen. John Nicholson, head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said at a news conference in Kabul. “Let me be clear, we will not relent in our mission to fight alongside our Afghan comrades to destroy ISIS-K in 2017.”
Nicholson, who gave the order to drop the $16 million explosive, said he spoke with officials in Washington about launching it — maintaining that the decision was wholly tactical.
“This was the first time that we encountered an extensive obstacle to our progress,” the fourstar general said of U.S.-Afghan efforts to fight ISIS.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Daulat Waziri said the death toll could rise, but no civilians were killed or injured in the Thursday attack.
Waziri added that such a powerful bomb was necessary because some tunnels were as deep as 140 feet and couldn’t be attacked as the area “was full of mines.”
ISIS countered on social media that no one was killed or hurt in the attack.
Officially known as GBU-43/B or a massive ordnance air blast (MOAB), the 11-ton bomb was developed in 2003 but had not been used until Thursday.
Residents from miles away said they were shaken by tremors as the weapon hit the eastern Afghan hills.
“The earth felt like a boat in a storm,” Mohammad Shahzadah, who lives about 2 miles from the blast zone, told The Guardian. “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.”