(Newswire.net — April 15, 2017) — A massive blast shook Afganistan when a non-nuclear bomb had hit its intended target. U.S. force blasted the ISIS outpost, killing 36 Jihadists who were hidden deeply in the mountain caves.
Guided Bomb Unit (GBU-43), also known as MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) or “The Mother of all bombs”, was first tested in March 2003. The bomb succeeded the 15,000 pounds heavy Vietnam-era TNT packed bomb BLU-82B ‘Daisy Cutter’ which was used to clear surfaces of mine and landing fields for helicopters operating in the jungle.
In 2008, the last of the 225 BLU-82s were officially replaced by the MOAB that weighs about 22,000 pounds. It is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. force arsenal, and has been released out of specially modified Hercules C-130 airplane.
The 30 feet long ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was dropped to a cave complex in the Achin district of Nangarhar province. The event occurred as a result of retaliation, after the U.S. special forces ‘Green Beret’ soldier was killed fighting the terrorist group in eastern Afganistan.
Little is known about the destructive power of the GBU-43. Indi Star journalist, Michael Campbell, tweeted a graphic chart of the damage radius that contains six circles or zones of impact. Using the High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator (HYDESim), he calculated different lethal thermobaric pressure zones.
At the press conference, the U.S. President Donald Trump repeated the same sentence several times, praising the U.S. military as if he was instructed to disclose nothing else on the event.
“We are very, very, proud of our military. Just we are proud of the folks in this room [US military officials], we are so proud of our military and it was another successful event,” Mr. Trump said. He added that he authorized the military to do the job.
“We have the greatest military in the world and they have done the job as usual, so we have given them total authorization and that’s what they are doing,” U.S. president told reporters, arguing that the military effort in fighting ISIS for the past several months is greater than all the efforts Obama’s administration has shown in the past eight years.
The Pentagon has commissioned only 20 GBU-43 bombs, due to its cost of $16 million apiece. The entire development program costs about $314 million, the Mirror reports.
Russia has developed its own thermobaric weapon which was tested in 2007. Little is known about this bomb nicknamed the “Father of All Bombs”, but the Russian military claims that it is four times more powerful than the American superbomb.