WATCH: Footage shows destructive power of US 'mother of all bombs'
The sheer destructive force of America’s 9700-kilogram “mother of all bombs” that was dropped on an Islamic State tunnel network has been captured on video.
In what was the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed, the attack on Afghanistan killed 36 militants and took out a key underground complex in the Achin district in Nangarhar province.
A video released by the Pentagon showed a mushroom cloud rising over the rugged terrain.
While President Trump labelled the attack as a “very successful mission”, IS has since denied that it suffered any casualties.
“Security source to Amaq agency denies any dead or wounded from yesterday’s American strike in Nangarhar using a GBU-43/B,” the group’s self-styled news agency, Amaq, claimed on social media.
The bombing is expected to further erode IS's capabilities in Afghanistan and sends a warning to the much bigger Taliban group ahead of their annual spring offensive.
It was the first time the United States has used the powerful GBU-43, which contains 11 tonnes of explosives, prompting President Trump to fire some shots of his own at his predecessor.
Trump said the decision to use the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb or “Mother Of All Bombs” showed a more muscular U.S. foreign policy than that of President Obama’s.
“Everybody knows exactly what happened. What I do is I authorise my military. We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done a job as usual,” Trump told a press conference in Atlanta on Thursday (local time).
“If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what’s happened over the past eight years, you’ll see there’s a tremendous difference, tremendous difference."
General John Nicholson, who heads US Forces Afghanistan defened the first ever deployment of the MOAB, saying it was the right choice of weapon for the situation.
“This was the best weapon to use to remove that obstacle and allow us to continue with our offensive operations into Southern Nangarhar,” he said.
“That is all there is to the timing... It was the right time to use it tactically against the right target on the ground.”
Each MOAB costs more than $21 million, ($16 million US).
