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US 'mother of all bombs' killed 90 Isis militants, say Afghan officials US 'mother of all bombs' killed 92 Isis militants, say Afghan officials
(about 3 hours later)
At least 90 Islamic State militants were killed in Afghanistan by the “mother of all bombs” dropped by the US military, Afghan officials have said. More than 90 Islamic State militants were killed when the US military dropped an 11-ton bomb on eastern Afghanistan, according to the Afghan government.
The GBU-43/B targeted an Isis mountain complex on Thursday in remote eastern Nangarhar province, engulfing the area in flames and causing a large mushroom cloud. The US military has not released a casualty toll and declined to comment on the Afghan numbers, saying only: “We are still conducting our assessment.”
Esmail Shinwari, the governor of Achin district, where the weapon was dropped, said: “At least 92 Daesh [Isis] fighters were killed in the bombing.” On 13 April, the US deployed the largest conventional bomb it has ever used in combat, striking a complex of tunnels and bunkers used by Isis militants in Achin district in Nangarhar province.
Attaullah Khogyani, a provincial spokesman in Nangarhar, said 90 people were killed, a figure far higher than the initial death toll of 36 Isis militants given by Afghan officials. After the bombing, US and Afghan forces conducted clearing operations and airstrikes in the area and assessed the damage.
Shinwari said there were “no military and civilian casualties at all”, and that Afghan commandos and US troops were carrying out cleanup operations in the area on Saturday. The bodies of the militants were found around the blast site. Security forces are reportedly still trying to get access to the actual target of the attack, a large cavity dug in the ground where Isis militants were holed up, making it possible that the body count could rise. Several mid-level Isis commanders are said to be among the dead.
Security experts believe Isis built their redoubts close to civilian homes, but the Afghan government says thousands of people have fled the area in recent months. “After the bomb, when we checked the tunnels, we took out around 100 dead bodies. They all died in the bombing,” said Mohammad Radmanesh, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan ministry of defence.
The GBU-43/B, which has an explosive yield of more than 11 tons of TNT, was used after fighting had intensified over the past week and US-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area. A US special forces soldier was killed last Saturday in Nangarhar during an operation against Isis. The district governor of Achin, Ismail Shinwari, said security forces had recovered 92 bodies, none of them civilians.
Gen John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said: “The enemy had created bunkers, tunnels and extensive minefields, and this weapon was used to reduce those obstacles so that we could continue our offensive in Nangarhar.” Residents living up to two miles from the blast site told the Guardian that the explosion broke windows and cracked walls in their houses.
The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said the attack was “designed to support the efforts of the Afghan national security forces and US forces conducting clearance operations in the region”. The bombing followed an extensive US campaign, waged for more than a year, to rid eastern Afghanistan of militants who had sworn loyalty to Isis. It is estimated there are fewer than 1,000 Isis combatants in Afghanistan, most of them based in remote mountain districts.
The bombing came a week after Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Syria after a chemical attack believed to have been carried out by Bashar al-Assad’s forces, and as China warned of the potential for conflict as tensions between the US and North Korea rise. Individual militants have conducted a string of atrocities in Kabul, killing more than 100 members of the country’s Shia minority in attacks that were later claimed by official Isis media channels.
Trump hailed the mission in Achin district as “very, very successful”, but some analysts called the action disproportionate. In Afghanistan, Isis is a much smaller fighting force than the Taliban, which is gaining ground and is currently poised at the edge of several provincial capitals.
Michael Kugelman of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington said: “The Trump administration made a lot of noise with this bomb, but the general state of play on the ground remains the same. The Taliban continues to wage a formidable and ferocious insurgency. Isis, by comparison, is a sideshow. The US has dedicated a lot of military power to eradicating Isis’s presence in the country. Last year, American warplanes released 1,337 weapons over Afghanistan, a 40% increase from 2015. The spike was largely a result of stepped-up military efforts in the east where Isis groups are based.
“Still, from a strategic standpoint, there is an unsettling takeaway here. The US pulled off a huge shock and awe mission against an enemy that isn’t even the top threat to the US in Afghanistan. The Taliban continues to sit pretty.” In February and March of this year, the US conducted more than 400 airstrikes in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is a larger militant group in Afghanistan than Isis, although the latter has made inroads into the country in recent years. The GBU-43/B or Moab, known as the “mother of all bombs”, is the largest non-nuclear bomb the US has deployed in war.
Speaking after the attack, Gen John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said: “The enemy had created bunkers, tunnels and extensive minefields, and this weapon was used to reduce those obstacles so that we could continue our offensive in Nangarhar.”
The Kabul government applauded the strike, with the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, saying it was a joint operation by Afghan and international troops. But some officials voiced concern. Ghani’s special envoy to Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal, called the attack “reprehensible and counterproductive”.
Speaking to the Guardian, the mayor of Achin, where the attack took place, questioned the necessity of such a large-scale strike against a relatively small militant group.