The U.S. has dropped its largest non-nuclear weapon after it targeted ISIS in a network of caves and tunnels in eastern Afghanistan.
The U.S. forces used a GPS-guided GBU-43 bomb, which is 30 feet long and weighs a staggering 21,600 pounds, Daily Mail reports. It is known as the “Mother Of All Bombs,” a play on “MOAB,” which is an acronym that stands for “Massive Ordnance Air Burst.”
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crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 meters wide after it exploded six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was reportedly vaporized.
The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that the explosive colossus was dropped in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, making it the first time America’s largest non-nuclear weapon has been used in a combat situation.
Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said it was the first ever combat use of the bomb, which contains 11 tons of explosives. Stump said the bomb was dropped on a cave complex believed to be used by ISIS fighters in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, very close to the border with Pakistan.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that MOAB is “a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon” whose use was intended to collapse underground spaces used by ISIS terrorists to move freely and attack U.S. and allied troops.
“The United States takes the fight against ISIS seriously, and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space – which we did,” Spicer said.
A specialized MC-130 “Hercules” cargo aircraft released the weapon at 7:00 p.m. local time.
It was too big to drop from a traditional bomb-bay door or release from an aircraft wing, so it was “kicked it out the back door,” a U.S. official told Fox News.
The weapon’s sheer power produces a blast that can be felt miles away, largely because of its construction.
Engineers used an unusually thin aluminum skin to encase MOAB’s payload, in order to avoid a thicker steel frame interfering with the impact on a target.
The U.S. fast-tracked the MOAB in 2003 for use in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but the Defense Department later decided that the enemy provided too little resistance to justify its deployment. It was available to the Obama administration throughout the former president’s entire two terms, but he never deployed it in combat.
Its first practical test was carried out on March 11, 2003 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
The explosion is a clear message for ISIS but will also send a saber-rattling message to North Korea and Iran that rogue states’ nuclear-weapons ambitions could be met with brute force.
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[H/T Daily Mail]
