On Thursday, April 13, the United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan.
This so-called “mother of all bombs” is the most powerful conventional non-nuclear bomb in the American arsenal and it’s so huge that it had to be dropped by the rear of a cargo plane.“The initial toll given by Afghan officials for Thursdays strike was 36. A statement released Friday through ISIS’ media wing, Amaq News Agency, said none of the terror group’s fighters were killed or injured,” CNN.com
The toll has now rose to at least 94 Islamic state fighters when the massive bomb was dropped on ISIS targets.
The ISIS targets were a network of fortified underground tunnels that were being used to stage attacks against government forces in the Nangarhar Province.
No civilians were hurt, but three of the underground tunnels were destroyed along with weapons and ammunition.
The United States military estimated 600 to 800 active fighters in the area.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he approved of the strike, and it was designed to support Afghan and US forces conducting clearance operations in the region.But former President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of using Afghanistan as "a testing ground for new and dangerous weapons.”
“The US military defended its decision when it was quizzed Friday on whether the 21,600-pound behemoth was necessary for that particular target,” CNN.com writes.
"This was the right weapon against the right target," Gen. John Nicholson, commander for US forces in Afghanistan, said at a news conference. "It was the right time to use it tactically against the right target on the battlefield."
