The US military on Thursday dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat, targeting an Islamic State complex in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — better known by its nickname, the “Mother Of All Bombs” — hit a tunnel complex at 7:32 pm (1502 GMT) in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump called the mission “very, very successful.”
The huge bomb, delivered via an MC-130 transport plane, has a blast yield equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, and the weapon was originally designed as much to intimidate foes as to clear broad areas.
“The GBU-43/B is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat,” Air Force spokesman Colonel Pat Ryder said.
Achin District Governor Esmail Shinwari said the bomb landed in the Momand Dara area.
“The explosion was the biggest I have ever seen. Towering flames engulfed the area,” Shinwari told AFP.
“We don’t know anything about the casualties so far, but since it is a Daesh (IS) stronghold we think a lot of Daesh fighters may have been killed.”
US Navy Captain Bill Salvin, spokesman for US Forces Afghanistan, said in an email to AFP that a bomb damage assessment was being carried out.
As to the possibility of civilian casualties from such a huge weapon, Salvin said: “Friendly forces scouted the area and noted the lack of civilian presence. The target was chosen to ensure the maximum effect against (IS) while preventing civilian casualties.”
General John Nicholson, who heads US Forces Afghanistan, described the weapon as the “right munition” to reduce IS obstacles and maintain the momentum against jihadists in the region.
The strike hit a system of tunnels and caves that IS fighters had used to “move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces” nearby, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
“We must deny them operational space, which we did,” Spicer added.
The Afghan government was aware of the US plan to bomb the IS tunnel complex, presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi suggested.
“Heavy casualties have been inflicted on the enemy,” Murtazawi said on Facebook, ruling out the possibility of civilian casualties.
– IS IN AFGHANISTAN –
The US military on Tuesday said an American special forces soldier had been killed while conducting operations against IS in Nangarhar, although it was not clear if Thursday’s strike was connected.
Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, is a hotbed of IS militancy. US forces have conducted a number of air strikes on jihadist bases in the area since August last year.
IS, notorious for its reign of terror in Syria and Iraq, has been making inroads into Afghanistan in recent years. It has attracted disaffected members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban as well as Uzbek Islamists.
But the group has been steadily losing territory in the face of heavy pressure both from US air strikes and a ground offensive led by Afghan forces.
The Islamic State group’s strength in Afghanistan has fallen to 600 to 800 fighters from 3,000 in early 2016, NATO has said, adding that it killed the top 12 IS commanders in the country last year.
The MOAB was rapidly developed in 2002-2003 around the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
According to the Air Force, the last time the MOAB was tested in 2003, a huge mushroom cloud could be seen from 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.
Despite its massive power, the MOAB still pales in comparison to a nuclear weapon.
Even the smallest of the US military’s atomic arsenal, the B-61 at its minimum configuration, has an explosive yield roughly 30 times that of the MOAB.
***
http://www.bbc.com/urdu/regional-39596467
امریکہ نے سب سے بڑا غیر جوہری بم افغانستان میں گرایا
تصویر کے کاپی رائٹREUTERSImage captionاس بم کا وزن 9800 کلو گرام تھا اور اس کی لمبائی 30 فٹ سے زیادہ تھی
امریکی فوج نے کہا ہے کہ اس نے پہلی بار اپنا اب تک کا سب سے بڑا غیر جوہری بم نام نہاد دولتِ اسلامیہ کے ٹھکانے پر گرایا ہے۔
جی بی يو -43 نام کے اس بم کو ’مدر آف آل بمبز‘ یعنی تمام بموں کی ماں قرار دیا جاتا ہے۔ اسے سب سے پہلے 2003 میں ٹیسٹ کیا گیا تھا لیکن اس کا استعمال پہلے کبھی نہیں ہوا۔
امریکی وزارت دفاع پینٹاگون نے کہا ہے کہ ان کے ایک طیارے نے افغانستان کے ننگرهار صوبے میں اس بم کو گرایا ہے۔
پینٹاگون کا کہنا ہے کہ اس کا نشانہ نام نہاد دولت اسلامیہ شدت پسندوں کے خفیہ ٹھکانے تھے۔
یہ حملہ گذشتہ ہفتے افغانستان میں دولتِ اسلامیہ سے جنگ کے دوران امریکی فوجی کی ہلاکت کے بعد ہوا ہے۔
تصویر کے کاپی رائٹREUTERSImage captionایک طیارے نے افغانستان کے ننگرهار صوبے میں اس بم کو گرایا
اس بم کا وزن 9800 کلو گرام تھا اور اس کی لمبائی 30 فٹ سے زیادہ تھی۔
امریکہ نے حملے سے ہونے والے نقصانات کے بارے میں کچھ نہیں بتایا۔ تاہم ایک مقامی اہلکار نے بی بی سی کو بتایا کہ حملے میں کئی شدت پسند مارے گئے، جن میں مبینہ طور پر دولتِ اسلامیہ کے ایک بڑے رہنما کا بھائی بھی شامل ہے۔
وائٹ ہاؤس کے ترجمان شان سپاسر نے کہا ’ہم نے سرنگ اور غاروں کے ان حصوں کو نشانہ بنایا جسے دولتِ اسلامیہ کے جنگجو آزاد ہوکر گھومنے کے لیے استعمال کرتے تھے۔ ‘
انھوں نے کہا کہ لوگوں کو نقصان نہ پہنچے اور ارد گرد نقصان کم ہو اس کے لیے ضروری احتیاط برتی گئی تھی۔
افغانستان میں امریکی فوج کے کمانڈر جنرل جان نكولسن نے کہا ’جہادیوں کے دھڑوں کی شکست میں اضافہ ہوا جس کے بعد وہ آئی ای ڈی، بنکروں اور سرنگوں کا استعمال کر رہے ہیں۔ ان رکاوٹوں کو کم کرنے اور ہماری حملوں کی رفتار برقرار رکھنے کے لیے یہ صحیح ہتھیار تھا۔‘
یہ خبر پینٹاگون کے شام میں ایک فضائی حملے میں غلطی سے 18 باغیوں کی ہلاکت کے اعتراف کے چند گھنٹے بعد آئی ہے۔
پینٹاگون نے کہا کہ ان کی ایک ساتھی فوج نے غلطی سے اس مقصد کو آئی ایس کے ٹھکانے سمجھ لیا۔
مگر 11 اپریل کو جو حملہ ہوا اس میں مارے گئے باغی شامی ڈیموکریٹک فورس کے باغی تھے جن کی امریکہ حمایت کرتا ہے۔
افغانستان میں دولتِ اسلامیہ نے جنوری 2015 میں اپنی شاخ قائم کی تھی۔ یہ پہلی بار تھا جب دولتِ اسلامیہ عرب سے باہر نکل کر سرکاری طور پر دنیا میں پھیل رہا تھا۔
ایک اندازے کے مطابق افغانستان میں دولتِ اسلامیہ کے جنگجوؤں کی تعداد 1000 سے 5000 تک ہو سکتی ہے۔
***8*ASHINGTON: US Department of Defence on Friday released a video which captures the exact moment the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was dropped in Afghanistan.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — better known by its nickname, the “Mother Of All Bombs” — hit a tunnel complex at 7:32 pm (1502 GMT) in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan said in a statement.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — better known by its nickname, the “Mother Of All Bombs” — hit a tunnel complex at 7:32 pm (1502 GMT) in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan had said in a statement.
KURRAM AGENCY: The United States dropped the largest non-nuclear device, called ‘mother of all bombs’ in an area in Afghanistan to target militants, but it also left an impact on the other side of border, causing damage to the buildings in Kurram Agency.
According to locals of the tribal area, cracks appeared in several buildings as well as worships places in Malana village in the foothills of Speen Ghar, commonly known as White Mountain. The village is a barrier between Nangarhar and the Kurram tribal region.
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 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.
Reports citing an elder tribal in Pakistan as saying that: “The whole of area was jolted. Initially we thought it was an earthquake, but a day later we came to know that the US had dropped a bomb in the Afghan side of the territory.”
Cracks appeared in the buildings after the explosion, he added.
The attack triggered global shock waves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered as big a threat as the resurgent Taliban.
It came a week after US President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack, and as China warned of the potential for conflict amid rising US tensions with North Korea.
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.
According to Reuters report, 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.
The huge bomb, delivered via an MC-130 transport plane, has a blast yield equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, and the weapon was originally designed as much to intimidate foes as to clear broad areas.
The strike hit a system of tunnels and caves that IS fighters had used to “move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces” nearby, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
“We must deny them operational space, which we did,” Spicer had added.
ISIS-K, also known as the Khorasan group, is based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and is composed primarily of former members of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.
The strike used a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb dropped from a U.S. aircraft. 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.
“As ISIS-K’s losses have mounted, they are using [improvised bombs], bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense,” said Army Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan. “This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K.”
U.S. forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike and will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan.
KABUL: The United States has dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, otherwise known as the ‘Mother of All Bombs’, on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.
It is the first time the bomb, developed in the early days of the Iraq war, has been used in combat.
The 9.8-tonne guided bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in America’s arsenal, is described by the US-based GlobalSecurity.org watchdog as “large, powerful and accurately delivered”.
It is a demolition bomb containing 8,480 kilogrammes of the explosive H6, the watchdog’s website says, with a blast yield equivalent to 11 tons of TNT.
Nine metres long, with a diameter of one metre, according to GlobalSecurity.org, it is the largest-ever satellite-guided, air-delivered weapon in history. Popular Mechanics described it as weighing as much as an F-16 fighter jet.
Guided by GPS, it is dropped from the cargo ramp of a C-130 transport plane with its descent slowed by parachute, meaning it can be deployed from a greater height — giving US pilots more time to reach safety.
It is a concussive bomb, meaning it is designed to detonate before it hits the ground. Its thin aluminium skin helps to maximise its blast radius and generate a shockwave which Wired.com said can reach up to 150 metres.
It was developed in 2002-2003 by Alabama-based aerospace and defence company Dynetics in partnership with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), according to the company’s website.
The website said the bomb’s preliminary concept was developed into a detailed design within just three months, and successfully tested three times in 13 days. It was first produced for use in the early days of the Iraq war.
According to the Air Force, the last time the MOAB was tested in 2003, a huge mushroom cloud could be seen from 32 kilometres away.
The US Air Force said the target of Thursday’s bombing was a tunnel complex in Achin district in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, a hotbed of Islamic State (IS) militancy on the border with Pakistan.
Achin District Governor Esmail Shinwari said the bomb landed in the Momand Dara area while the defence ministry said the attack killed at least 36 IS militants. A damage assessment is still being carried out.
The area is extremely remote and mountainous, inaccessible to government forces. It is north of Tora Bora, the complex network of caves from where Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden gave US forces the slip and escaped into Pakistan in late 2001.
The US said it believed the area was so remote that no civilians were in the area.
The strike hit a system of tunnels and caves that IS fighters had used to “move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces” nearby, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
Wired.com said a concussive bomb such as the MOAB has the advantage in such terrain: “Its blast can turn corners, and push all the way to the furthest reaches of a cave.”
REUTERS
REUTERS
No comments:
Post a Comment