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As many as 36 suspected Isis militants were killed in Afghanistan when the US dropped “the mother of all bombs,” its largest non-nuclear device ever unleashed in combat, the Afghan Defence Ministry said on Friday.

Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said no civilians were harmed in Thursday’s massive blast that targeted a network of caves and tunnels.

“No civilian has been hurt and only the base which Daesh used to launch attacks in other parts of the province, was destroyed,” Waziri said in a statement, using an Arabic term for Isis, which has established a small stronghold in eastern Afghanistan and launched deadly attacks on the capital, Kabul.

A colossal US bomb dropped Thursday on ISIS tunnels in eastern Afghanistan killed 36 militants, according to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

The blast, from the weapon dubbed the “mother of all bombs,” destroyed three underground tunnels as well as weapons and ammunition, but no civilians were hurt, said a Defense Ministry spokesman.
US military officials told CNN a GBU-43/B Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was dropped on ISIS positions in Nangarhar province, near the Pakistan border.
Capable of destroying an area equivalent to nine city blocks, the 30-foot-long, 21,600-pound bomb is the most powerful non-nuclear weapon the US has in its arsenal. It’s the first time it’s ever been used in conflict.
A local resident living around two kilometers (1.5 miles) from the blast told CNN he heard an “extremely loud boom that smashed the windows of our house.”
“We were all scared and my children and my wife were crying. We thought it had happened right in front of our house,” he said.
Officials said ISIS, which has expanded into Afghanistan in recent years, was using a complex of caves and tunnels that were mined and fortified against conventional attack.
US President Donald Trump said Thursday the bombing was “another successful job.” It is the third major military action his administration has taken in recent months, following a military raid in Yemen that left civilians and a US Marine dead, and last week’s surprise strike on a Syrian airfield.
Afghanistan’s ambassador to the US, Hamdullah Mohib, said the colossal MOAB was dropped after fighting had intensified over the last week. US and Afghan forces had been unable to advance because ISIS had mined the area with explosives.
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