In what can only be described as yet another breathtaking message to the world, U.S. forces under President Donald Trump’s command just dropped the country’s biggest non-nuclear bomb on a complex of bunkers and tunnels utilized by the Islamic State group’s fighters in Afghanistan.
According to CNN, an American MC-130 airplane dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, alternatively known as the “Mother of all Bombs,” or MOAB, for the first time in combat on an Islamic State group target in northeast Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer stressed to reporters during the daily briefing that the military took all necessary precautions to minimize potential civilian casualties ahead of the targeted strike on a “system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely.”
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According to the New York Daily News, the MOAB is officially designated as the GBU-43/B, and is a GPS-guided, 21,600-pound bomb that carries roughly 18,700 pounds worth of explosives.
The bomb is designed not to penetrate the ground, but rather to explode in the air just above the ground in a manner that creates a massive shock wave that literally crushes bunkers, caves and tunnels underground while vaporizing virtually everything in the blast zone above ground.
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The bomb was developed in 2003 just ahead of the Iraq War, and though its testing was widely publicized, it had never before been used in combat.
You can see footage of the bomb’s explosion here:
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The MOAB is the replacement for the similar but smaller BLU-82 “Daisy Cutter” bomb that gained fame during the Vietnam War for its use in clearing landing zones for helicopters.
“At 7:32 p.m. local time today, U.S. forces – Afghanistan conducted a strike on an ISIS-K tunnel complex in Achin district, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, as part of ongoing efforts to defeat ISIS-K in Afghanistan in 2017,” read a statement from U.S. Central Command, according to Business Insider, which used the abbreviation of the Islamic State group branch in Afghanistan known as ISIS-Khorasan.
“The strike used a GBU-43 bomb dropped from a US aircraft,” the statement continued. “The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities.”
“As ISIS-K’s losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense,” stated Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K.”
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You can watch a short video about the MOAB bomb here:
This was a display of the awesome power at the disposal of the U.S. military that won’t be missed by our nation’s enemies and rivals.
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