The United States dropped its largest non-nuclear weapon on Thursday after it targeted an ISIS network of caves and tunnels in eastern Afghanistan.

U.S. forces used a 30-foot long, GPS-guided GBU-43 bomb, at around 7.30pm local time in the Nangarhar Province.

The weapon weighs a staggering 21,600 pounds.

It is known as the 'Mother Of All Bombs' – a play on 'MOAB,' an acronym that stands for 'Massive Ordnance Air Burst.'  

A crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 meters (1,000 feet) wide after it exploded six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was vaporized.

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was 'very, very proud' and called the operation 'really another successful job. We're very, very proud of our military.'

The Pentagon is denying that the attack was a revenge strike despite the fact that it came in the same area of Afghanistan where a Green Beret soldier was killed on Saturday.

Staff Sgt. Mark De Alencar of the 7th Special Forces Group was cut down by enemy small arms fire while his unit was conducting counter-ISIS operations. 

HOW THE MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS KILLS PEOPLE: VAPORIZED BODIES, CRUSHED INTERNAL ORGANS AND SUFFOCATED TO DEATH

The GBU-43, otherwise known as the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB unleashes a devastating fireball that incinerates anything within 30 feet when it first detonates.

In the milliseconds following the initial blast, all the oxygen would have been sucked out of the tunnels and for hundreds of feet around, literally sucking the life out of terrorists, suffocating them as their lungs imploded.

Then, in a flash the fiery shockwave would have blasted outwards at the speed of sound for up to a mile, causing huge concussive injuries to anyone caught in its path, essentially smashing them to death, while at the same time leveling buildings and trees.

Ears would have been left bleeding and internal organs battered by the staggering force of the blast.

Anyone caught inside the tunnels would have been crushed as the force of 19,000 pounds of highly complex explosives caused them to collapse on the ISIS terrorists.

Anyone left alive would have been shocked and left in awe by the ferocity of the blast - the psychological scars staying with them forever. 
The Pentagon estimates that up to 800 ISIS soldiers were in the area at the time of the blast. 

Its frightening  power was unleashed by the United States for the first time on Thursday when it was dropped on an ISIS camp in Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, in order to obliterate underground tunnels used by the terrorists.

A crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 feet wide after it exploded just six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was vaporized.

The energy released by the nearly 19,000 pounds of highly complex explosive, would have caused a barometric shock wave known as 'overpressure' that moves at the speed of sound away from ground zero.

Classed as a thermobaric bomb - 'thermo' for heat and 'baric' for pressure, the MOAB features a two stage detonation powered by H6 explosive which contains powdered aluminum.

The first blast detonates and spreads highly flammable aluminum dust and the second is the baric blast - which literally sucks oxygen out from cave tunnels before rapidly becoming an expanding shock wave.

Both the implosion and the blast wave cause massive internal damage to anyone who has not been already been incinerated by the detonation, with most injuries to hollow organs such as the ears, lungs and stomach.

Anyone in the tunnels who did not have the life sucked out them would have then been crushed to death by the sheer force of the explosion. 

1: The MOAB would technically explode as an airburst weapon, albeit from six-feet and not thousands, like a nuclear bomb. 
2: As the bomb ignites the alumimum dust and nearly 19,000 pounds of explosives a shock wave sucks the air from another 160-feet of prime Manhattan real estate and destroying Broadway. Concrete buildings are severely damaged and fatalities are also close to 100 percent here.
3: The dissipated air blast continues on to more than 300-feet, damaging more residential buildings and causing injury to anyone caught up in the blast and more fatalities.
4: People up to 330-feet away from Ground Zero would suffer 3rd degree burns and some would suffer the loss of their limbs. 

Trump suggested he had not personally ordered the bomb strike but delegated authority to commanders in the field.

'Everybody knows exactly what happened. So, what I do is I authorize my military ... We have given them total authorization,' he said.
The move marks the fulfilment of a 17-month-old campaign promise Trump delivered in Iowa, when he scoffed at ISIS terror forces and said he 'would bomb the s**t out of them' if he became president.

It also comes at a moment in the young Trump presidency when tensions are rising with Russia over its role in Syria, where ISIS has its headquarters.

The explosion will also send a saber-rattling message to North Korea and Iran that rogue states' nuclear-weapons ambitions could be met with brute force.  

Trump said of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un: 'I don't know if this sends a message. It doesn't make any difference if it does or not.'

North Korea's a problem. The problem will be taken care of.'

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that MOAB is 'a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon' whose use was intended to collapse underground spaces used by ISIS terrorists to move freely and attack U.S. and allied troops.

'The United States takes the fight against ISIS seriously, and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space – which we did,' Spicer said.

He referred reporters' questions to the Pentagon and ignored a shouted question about whether Trump had been aware the bomb was dropped before or during the military operation.

Trump said during a November 2015 campaign rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa that ISIS was 'making a tremendous amount of money' because of 'certain areas of oil that they took away' after the Obama administration withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

'They have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the s**t out of them,' he said to wild cheers. 'I would just bomb those suckers. That's right. I'd blow up the pipes. ... I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.' 

A specialized MC-130 'Hercules' cargo aircraft released the weapon at 7:00 p.m. local time.

It was too big to drop from a traditional bomb-bay door or release from an aircraft wing, so 'we kicked it out the back door,' a U.S. official told Fox News.

The weapon's sheer power produces a blast that can be felt miles away, largely because of its construction.

Engineers used an unusually thin aluminum skin to encase MOAB's payload, in order to avoid a thicker steel frame interfering with the impact on a target.

The U.S. fast-tracked the MOAB in 2003 for use in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but the Defense Department later decided that the enemy provided too little resistance to justify its deployment. 

It was available to the Obama administration throughout the former president's entire two terms, but he never deployed it in combat. 
Its first practical test was carried out on March 11, 2003 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. 

The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that the explosive colossus was dropped in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, making it the first time America's largest non-nuclear weapon has been used in a combat situation. 

Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said it was the first ever combat use of the bomb, which contains 11 tons of explosives. 

Stump said the bomb was dropped on a cave complex believed to be used by ISIS fighters in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, very close to the border with Pakistan.

Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement about ISIS that '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].'

News reports suggest Nicholson made the decision to drop it from the sky.

He added that '[t]he 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.'

The ISIS faction in Afghanistan is known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria-Khorasan province, or ISIS-K.  

HOW 'MOAB' WORKS 

Key stats:

• Known as the 'Mother Of All Bombs'
• The U.S. military's largest non-nuclear weapon
• Each bomb costs around $16 million (£12.8 million)
• Its explosion is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT and the blast radius is a mile wide
• First tested by US forces in 2003
• It is designed to destroy heavily reinforced targets or to shatter ground forces and armour across a large area
• 30 feet (9 meters) long and 40 inches (1 meter) wide
• Weighs 21,000lbs (9,500kg) – heavier than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb 
• Leaves no lasting radiation effect 

How it's deployed:

• The bomb has 'grid' fins that fold into the body and then open up in flight to help control its descent
• It can only be deployed out of the back of a large cargo plane due to its size
• The bomb rides on a pallet, a parachute pulls the pallet and bomb out of the plane
• The pallet then separates so that the bomb can fall to its target
• It accelerates rapidly to its terminal velocity and is partially guided to its target via satellite
• It explodes six feet (1.8 meters) above the ground
• The idea behind this 'airburst' mechanism is to spread its destructive range

HERE'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE 'MOTHER OF BOMBS'

It was first created as a psychological weapon, designed to scare the enemy into surrendering.

But today, the GBU-43/B - dubbed the 'Mother of all bombs' - has been dropped on an IslamicState complex in Afghanistan.

A crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 meters wide after it exploded six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was vaporized.

This is the first time the Moab (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) explosive in combat for the first time. But what is the huge explosive, and how does it work?

The Moab or GBU-43/B is the world's largest non-nuclear weapon.

It is designed to destroy heavily reinforced targets or to shatter ground forces and armour across a large area.

Its blast is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. By comparison, the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima had a blast yield of 15 tons of TNT.

First tested in 2003, it was developed by by US forces in preparation for the Iraq invasion but was never deployed during the war.

The huge bomb measure 30 feet (9 metres) long and 40 inches (1 metre) wide, and weighs 21,000lbs (9,500kg) – heavier than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

While it has a blast radius that stretches a mile in each direction the bomb leaves no lasting radiation effect because it is non-nuclear.

Deploying such a large bomb isn't easy as even the world's largest bombing aircraft can't manage the Moab's size and weight.

The bomb can only be deployed out of the back of large cargo plane using a unique system.

A parachute pulls the bomb out of the plane on a box-like pallet that quickly separates from the explosive.

Grid fins then extend from the body to help control the bomb's descent.

It accelerates rapidly to its terminal velocity and is partially guided to its target via satellite.

The bomb explodes six feet (1.8 metres) above the ground using an 'airburst' mechanism to spread its destructive power horizontally rather than vertically.

Today, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb hit a 'tunnel complex' in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan said in a statement.

A specialized MC-130 'Hercules' cargo aircraft released the weapon at 7:00 p.m. local time.

It was too big to drop from a traditional bomb-bay door or release from an aircraft wing, so 'we kicked it out the back door,' a U.S. official told Fox News.

The weapon's sheer power produces a blast that can be felt miles away, largely because of its construction.

Engineers used an unusually thin aluminum skin to encase MOAB's payload, in order to avoid a thicker steel frame interfering with the impact on a target.

The Moab was first developed as a psychological weapon to scare enemy troops into surrender.

A video of the original 'Elgin' test was released to the public in order to unsettle the Iraqi forces.

'The goal is to have the pressure be so great that Saddam Hussein cooperates,' then-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.

'Short of that - an unwillingness to cooperate - the goal is to have the capabilities of the coalition so clear and so obvious that there is an enormous disincentive for the Iraqi military to fight against the coalition.'

Share This Post