US drops largest ever
non-nuclear bomb on Isis affiliate in Afghanistan, military says
GBU-43/B, known as the
‘mother of all bombs’, dropped for the first time, to target ‘tunnel complex’
used by Islamic State in Khorosan
Spencer Ackerman in
New York and Sune Engel Rasmussen in Kabul
Thursday 13 April
2017 18.30 BST Last modified on Friday 14 April 2017 02.44 BST
The US has dropped
its largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat on Afghanistan, the US
military said on Thursday.
To target what the
military described as a “tunnel complex” used by the Islamic State’s
Afghanistan affiliate, the US for the first time used what the military
colloquially calls the “mother of all bombs”, the GBU-43/B.
Designed for
destroying underground targets but not itself a deep-earth penetrator weapon,
the GBU-43/B has the explosive yield of more than 11 tons of TNT. The massive
bomb is dropped from air force planes and detonates before reaching the ground,
resulting in an enormous blast radius. Only the Massive Ordnance Penetrator
GBU-57, which has never been used in war, is a larger conventional weapon.
The psychological
effect on survivors or observers is considered an added impact of the weapon.
Asked whether he had
authorized the bombing, Donald Trump said: “Everybody knows exactly what
happened. What I do is I authorize my military. We have the greatest military
in the world and they’ve done a job as usual. We have given them total
authorization and that’s what they’re doing and frankly that’s why they’ve been
so successful lately.”
Did this bombing send
a message to North Korea? “I don’t know if this sends a message; it doesn’t
make any difference if it does or not,” the president said. “North Korea is a
problem, the problem will be taken care of.” He implied that China was “working
very hard” on this issue.
Army Gen John W
Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement that
the GBU-43/B was the “right munition” to use against the Islamic State in
Khorosan, or Isis-K.
“As Isis-K’s losses
have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their
defense. This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the
momentum of our offensive against Isis-K,” Nicholson said.
The blast detonated
at 7.32pm local time in the Achin district of the eastern province of
Nangarhar, according to the US military.
Sarab, a local
resident from Asadkhel in Achin, close to the mountain where the bomb targeted
Isis tunnels, said he saw a giant flame before the blast made the ground shake.
“It was the biggest blast I have ever heard,” he said. Sarab added that the
targeted area had recently been completely occupied by Isis fighters.
“There is no way that
civilians were still living there,” he said.
However, a
parliamentarian from Nangarhar, Esmatullah Shinwari, said locals had told him
one teacher and his young son had been killed. One man, the MP recounted, had
told him before the phone lines went down: “I have grown up in the war, and I
have heard different kinds of explosions through 30 years: suicide attacks,
earthquakes different kinds of blasts. I have never heard anything like this.”
Phone connections are
regularly interrupted in Achin and there were no immediate indication of
casualties.
Haji Ghalib Mujahed,
a local veteran commander, said he felt “tremors” all the way to Bati Kot, a
neighbouring district where he is now the administrative chief.
According to the most
recent estimates from the US military in Afghanistan, there are between 600 and
800 Isis-K fighters in the country. Most of them are based in southern
Nangarhar province, including in Achin.
An American special
forces soldier was killed last week in Achin while fighting Isis-K, but a US
military spokesman in Kabul, Capt William Salvin, said there was “absolutely no
connection” between that death and Thursday’s bombing.
Nicholson’s command
said it took “every precaution to avoid civilian casualties”, without defining
those steps, but gave no word on the impact to Afghan civilians.
The military said it
used the GBU-43/B to “minimize the risk” to Afghan and US forces fighting
Isis-K in Achin.
Following the
bombing, US and Afghan forces began clearing operations in the targeted area.
An Afghan army
soldier told the Guardian, as he was driving toward the targeted area: “The
explosion felt like a big earthquake, even in the surrounding districts.”
Trump has said
practically nothing about Afghanistan, either as candidate or president.
Nicholson told Congress in February that he wanted a few thousand more troops
to bolster the 8,400-strong force Barack Obama left to wage America’s longest
war, now in its 16th year.
Trump on Wednesday
said he would dispatch his national security adviser, HR McMaster, to meet with
Nicholson and conduct a policy review. As a three-star army general on active
duty, McMaster is outranked by Nicholson, making it difficult for McMaster to
resist Nicholson’s recommendations.
The US military is
currently facing widespread concerns that its accelerated bombing campaigns in
Syria, Iraq and Yemen are increasing civilian casualties. A 17 March strike on
a building in Mosul is currently under investigation after killing scores of
Iraqis.
US allies have also
felt the brunt of escalated US airstrikes. On Thursday, the Pentagon revealed
that its Syrian allies in a Kurdish-led ground force, the Syrian Democratic
Forces, requested an airstrike on an errant position erroneously believed to be
held by Isis. The 11 April strike killed 18 fighters belonging to the Syrian
Democratic Forces themselves.
Air Force statistics
released on Thursday show that March 2017 was the most intense month of the
US-led bombing campaign against Isis in Iraq and Syria, a war nearly three
years old. US warplanes fired 3,878 munitions in March, topping January 2017’s
previous high of 3,600.
In Afghanistan, US
warplanes fired 203 weapons in March, the highest volume since October.
Hamid Karzai, the
former president of Afghanistan installed in 2001 by the US and backed by the
international community, tweeted that the bombing meant Afghans needed to “stop
the USA”.
Trump said on the
campaign trail that he would “bomb the shit” out of Isis.
His spokesman, Sean
Spicer, said on Thursday the use of the GBU-43/B showed the US “takes the fight
against Isis very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them
operational space, which we did”.
Describing the
bombing at his regular White House press briefing, he told reporters: “At
around 7pm local time in Afghanistan last night the United States military used
a GBU-43 weapon in Afghanistan. The GBU-43 is a large, powerful and accurately
delivered weapon. We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that Isis fighters
used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military
advisers and Afghan forces in the area.”
He refused to answer
further questions about the bomb at his regular press briefing, referring
journalists to the Department of Defense.
Additional reporting
by David Smith in Washington
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