13 April 2017
US drops mother of all bombs
By CNN
Washington (CNN)The US military dropped America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan Thursday, the first time this type of weapon has been used in battle, according to US officials.
A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the "mother of all bombs," was dropped at 7:32 pm local time, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission. A MOAB is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition.
The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, stationed in Afghanistan and operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told CNN.
Officials said the target was an ISIS cave and tunnel complex and personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province.
"The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space, which we did," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said later Thursday. The strike "targeted a system of tunnels and cave that ISIS fighters use to move around freely."
However, officials in Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior and Nangarhar provincial government told CNN that, so far, they have no information about the US bomb drop.
The military is currently assessing the damage. Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb, according to the sources. The authority to deploy the weapon was granted to Nicholson by the commander of US Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, Stump said.
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