On Thursday, April 13, 2017, the American army dropped America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in afghanistan. According to US military officers directly involved in the mission, the bomb called GBU-43/B, "Massive Ordnance Air Blast“ (MOAB or “mother of all bombs”) was dropped at 19:32 p.m. local time and has hit the target successfully.
The bomb was aimed at system of caves where ISIS soldiers hide
According to military sources, the bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by the US Air Force Special Operations Command.
Military sources say that the target was ISIL and their tunnels in the district of the Achin Nangarhar province. General John Nicholson, commander of the US forces in Afghanistan was the one who gave the green light for throwing the massive bomb. He said the bomb was targeted at the system of caves and where fighters of the Islamic state in Afghanistan lived. According to the latest information, up to 36 suspected ISIS militants were killed in the attack.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer gave basic information about these weapons and said the United States decided they have to destroy these tunnels because soldiers of the Islamic state used them to move freely, to attack US military advisors and Afghan army in that area.
An American soldier was killed in the same district last week. He was hit by a bomb while conducting an operation against the Islamic state.
MOAB is nowhere near the power of nuclear bombs
Many people wonder what is so special about this bomb. Well, it is designed in a way that it creates excessive pressure as the bomb explodes above the target literally crushing the underground tunnels and bunkers.
However, the MOAB is nowhere near the power of nuclear bombs. For example, the most known nuclear bombs that were dropped on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II had the explosive power of about 15 kilotons. These bombs killed nearly 200 thousand people. According to Dr. Adam Lowther, one of the most influential American air force doctors, MOAB with its 0.1 or 0.2 kilotons is not even close to it.
United States are taking this fight against ISIS very seriously. In order to defeat them, it is necessary to take away their operating space, and that is exactly what US military did with this mission. The bomb they used was developed during the war in Iraq, but this is the first time they actually used it.