Kagin maw sa sa - 'Number of IS fighters killed by US bomb crosses 90'

Mega killer: The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb the U.S. forces dropped on an IS target in Afghanistan. AP   | Photo Credit: AP

Kabul: The massive bomb was dropped after fighting intensified over the past week and US-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area.

An Afghan official says the number of militants killed in an attack by the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S. military has risen to 94.

Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar, said Saturday the number of Islamic State group dead was up from the 36 reported a day earlier.

A Ministry of Defense official had said Friday that the number of dead could rise as officials assessed the bomb site in Achin district.

The U.S. attack on a tunnel complex in remote eastern Nangarhar province near the Pakistan border killed at least four IS group leaders, Khogyani said. He said a clearance operation was continuing.

There had been heavy fighting in the area in recent weeks between Afghan forces and IS militants.

The number of Islamic State fighters killed by a massive US bomb in eastern Afghanistan has nearly tripled to at least 90, Afghan officials said on Saturday.

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- dubbed the "Mother Of All Bombs" -- was unleashed in combat for the first time, hitting IS positions in eastern Nangarhar province on Thursday.

The bomb smashed their mountain hideouts, a tunnel-and-cave complex that had been mined against conventional ground attacks, engulfing the remote area in towering flames.

"At least 92 Daesh (IS) fighters were killed in the bombing," Achin district governor Esmail Shinwari told AFP on Saturday. Nangarhar provincial spokesman Attaullah Khogyani gave a toll of 90.

Afghan officials had earlier said the bombing had killed 36 IS fighters.

Mr. Shinwari insisted there were "no military and civilian casualties at all".

Security experts say IS had built their redoubts close to civilian homes, but the government said thousands of local families had already fled the area in recent months of fighting.

The massive bomb was dropped after fighting intensified over the past week and US-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area. An American special forces soldier was killed last Saturday in Nangarhar while conducting anti-IS operations.

President Ashraf Ghani threw his support behind the bombardment.

But some officials close to him condemned the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that controls only a tiny sliver of territory and is not considered a huge threat.

IS, notorious for its reign of terror in Syria and Iraq, has made inroads into Afghanistan in recent years, attracting disaffected members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban as well as Uzbek Islamists.

But the group has been steadily losing ground in the face of heavy pressure both from US air strikes and a ground offensive led by Afghan forces.

Source: Agencies

Mother of all bombs kills 36 Islamic State militants in Afghanistan

A general view of Achin district, in Jalalabad, after U.S. forces dropped the bomb.   | Photo Credit: AP

Kabul: There were no civilian casualties, according to the Ministry of Defense statement

As many as 36 suspected Islamic State militants were killed in Afghanistan when the United States dropped the “mother of all bombs”, one of the largest non-nuclear devices ever unleashed in combat, the Afghan Defence Ministry said on Friday.

Thursday's strike came as U.S. President Donald Trump dispatches his first high-level delegation to Kabul, amid uncertainty about his plans for the nearly 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan.

The deaths have not been independently verified, but Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said no civilians were harmed in the massive blast that targeted a network of caves and tunnels.

“No civilian has been hurt and only the base, which Daesh used to launch attacks in other parts of the province, was destroyed,” Mr. Waziri said in a statement.

He was using an Arabic term that refers to Islamic State, which has established a small stronghold in eastern Afghanistan and launched deadly attacks on the capital, Kabul.

The 9,797-kg GBU-43 bomb, was dropped from an MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar bordering Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said on Thursday.

The device, also known as the “mother of all bombs,” is a GPS-guided munition that had never before been used in combat since its first test in 2003, when it produced a mushroom cloud visible from 32 km away.

The bomb's destructive power, equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, pales in comparison with the relatively small atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War Two, which had blasts equivalent to between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of TNT.

Source: Reuters

U.S. unleashes 'mother of all bombs' for first time in Afghanistan

PC: Yahoo

WASHINGTON, Apr 14: The United States dropped "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear device it has ever unleashed in combat, on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, the military said.

President Donald Trump touted the bombing as evidence of a more muscular U.S. foreign policy since he took office in January after eight years of President Barack Obama.

The 21,600 pound (9,797 kg) GBU-43 bomb, which has 11 tons of explosives, was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said.

The GBU-43, also known as the "mother of all bombs," is a GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003. It is regarded as particularly effective against clusters of targets on or just underneath the ground. Other types of bombs can be more effective against deeper, hardened tunnels.

It was the first time the United States has used this size of conventional bomb in a conflict.

Trump described the bombing as a "very successful mission.” It was not immediately clear how much damage the device did.

During last year's presidential election campaign, Trump vowed to give priority to destroying Islamic State, which operates mostly in Syria and Iraq. He flexed U.S. military muscles last week by ordering a cruise missile attack on a Syrian government airbase in retaliation for a poison gas attack.

"If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what’s happened over the last eight years, you’ll see that there’s a tremendous difference," Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

The security situation remains precarious in Afghanistan, with a number of militant groups trying to claim territory more than 15 years after the U.S. invasion which toppled the Taliban government.

So far, Trump has offered little clarity about a broader strategy for Afghanistan, where some 8,400 U.S. troops remain.

PC: OANN

LONG AFGHAN WAR

Last week, a U.S. soldier was killed in the same district as where the bomb was dropped while he was conducting operations against Islamic State.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the bombing "targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target U.S. military advisers and Afghan forces in the area."

Spicer said the bomb was dropped at around 7 p.m. local time and described it as "a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon." U.S. forces took "all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage," he said.

Afghan soldiers and police, with the aid of thousands of foreign military advisers, are struggling to hold off a resurgent insurgency led by the Taliban, as well as other groups like Islamic State.

The U.S. government's top watchdog on Afghanistan said earlier this year that the Afghan government controls less than 60 percent of the country.

Foreign policy experts said that it appeared the use of a specialised weapon like the GBU-43 had more to do with the type of target -- tunnels -- than the United States sending any message to other countries by using such a powerful weapon.

"This is a very specialised weapon, we don't have very many of them, you can only use them in a very narrow set of circumstances," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Cancian added that while sending a message to Syria or North Korea could have been among the secondary factors considered, they would not have been the main reason for using this type of weapon.

U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the use of this bomb was a sign that the United States was committed to Afghanistan.

But Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a Democrat who was the only "no" vote for authorization for use of military force in Afghanistan in 2001, said the move was unprecedented and asked for an explanation.

"President Trump owes the American people an explanation about his escalation of military force in Afghanistan and his long-term strategy to defeat ISIS," she said in a statement.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said recently that he needed several thousand more international troops in order to break a stalemate in the long war with Taliban insurgents.

U.S. officials say intelligence suggests Islamic State is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighbouring Kunar province.

Estimates of its strength in Afghanistan vary. U.S. officials have said they believe the movement has only 700 fighters but Afghan officials estimate it has about 1,500.

The Afghan Taliban, which is trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, are fiercely opposed to Islamic State and the two group have clashed as they seek to expand territory and influence.

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