U.S GOVT DROPS MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS IN LATEST OPERATION!
The U.S. dropped a bomb containing 11 tons of explosives on a cave complex used by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) along the border with Pakistan on Thursday, the Pentagon said.
The bomb is officially called a GBU-43 or Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the origin of its nickname as the “mother of all bombs.” The weapon is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat.
The strike had been in the works for a number of months, dating back to the Obama administration, CBS News correspondent David Martin reports. The weapon was brought into Afghanistan specifically for Thursday’s mission.
At the White House, President Trump called the mission “another very, very successful mission.” Asked if he personally authorized the strike, Mr. Trump said “everybody knows exactly what happened.”
“What I do is I authorize my military,” Mr. Trump said. “We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done a job, as usual. So, we have given them total authorization. And that’s what they’re doing.”
Earlier at the daily White House briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer declined to say whether Mr. Trump had personally authorized the use of the weapon.
Spicer said that the strike targeted a “system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely.” He said the U.S. “took all precautions necessary” to minimize civilian casualties.
General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, sought and obtained permission to use the MOAB, but it’s unclear how far up the chain of command his request traveled, Martin reports.
U.S. officials estimate approximately 800 ISIS fighters are active in Nangarhar province, down from a high of 2,000 since the group first gained a foothold in the area in 2015, NPR reported.
The U.S. command in Afghanistan said in a statement that 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,” using the term for ISIS’s Afghan contingent.
Officials “took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike,” the statement said.
The U.S. military debuted the 21,600-lb. MOAB during a test in Florida shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The test was intended to demonstrate the “enormous incentive” Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had to relinquish power and “spare the world a conflict,” then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the time.
The cloud of debris from the ensuing explosion in the 2003 test was visible from more than 20 miles away, according to the Air Force. U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq nine days later, and a MOAB was deployed to the region on April 1, 2003, but never used.