Free Republic

Why do you think the U.S. dropped a MOAB in Afghanistan? To distract from the Trump/Russia election hack. To save the lives of U.S. military personnel.

Full title.........................Devastating aftermath of the 'Mother of all Bombs': Children play among the rubble in Afghan town where largest non-nuclear weapon ever used by US military killed 94 militants including four ISIS leaders.......................... Ministry of Defense official said the death toll could rise as the bomb site is assessed Nangarhar spokesman Ataullah Khogyani, said there is no report of any civilians being killed in the bombing Former president Hamid Karzai criticized the Afghan and US governments for the attack On Saturday, Karzai said allowing the US to carry out the bombing was 'treason' Current President Ashraf Ghani said the government...

KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 94 Islamic State militants were killed by the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat, an Afghan army spokesman said Saturday. Maj. Sherin Aqa, head of public affairs for the 201st Corps in eastern Nangarhar province, where the GBU-43B was detonated, said ISIS commanders are among the dead. “Our latest reports indicate that four main commanders are among the 94 people killed,” Aqa told Stars and Stripes.

On Thursday, the U.S. military dropped a MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) on an ISIS tunnel complex in Nangahar Province in Afghanistan. Shortly after that, USA Today posted a breathtakingly ignorant graphic purporting to show that the MOAB contained over 70 percent of the destructive force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. This epic fail occurred even though the following comparison was known early on: The MOAB has the force of 11 tons of TNT. For comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had the force of 15 thousand tons of TNT. The destructive force of the...

I know President Trump’s work with China led to the good behavior of North Korea. Plus, the fact that Trump showed North Korea the United States would not take their threats sitting down was a huge factor in their backing off of even a missile test. I believed late last night that we would not strike NK for only a missile test, but if they harmed a hair on our back, or South Korea, or Japan, a war would be our only choice. I praise God this did not happen. I wonder if we are about to see a decrease...

After U.S. forces dropped "the mother of all bombs" on an ISIS tunnel complex in Afghanistan, Hollywood director Josh Fox railed against the decision to deploy the military's largest non-nuclear device, which reportedly killed several dozen ISIS militants.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The number of militants killed in an attack by the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S. military has risen to 94, an Afghan official said Saturday. Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar, said the number of Islamic State group dead was up from the 36 reported a day earlier. A Ministry of Defense official had said Friday the number of dead could rise as officials assessed the bomb site in Achin district. “Fortunately there is no report of civilians being killed in the attack,” Khogyani said. The U.S. attack on...

On April 13, 2017, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb known as the Mother of All Bombs or MOAB for short was used for the first time in combat. The largest non-nuclear weapon in current inventory was used against an ISIS target in a remote part of far northeast Afghanistan. The target in question was reportedly an ISIS complex of tunnels, caves and a camp where personnel were assembling. The MOAB is a large-yield conventional (non-nuclear) precision guided bomb, developed for the United States Air Force by Albert L. Weimorts, Jr. of the Air Force Research Laboratory. At the...

ISLAMABAD — Afghan officials say the number of militants known to have been killed by a huge U.S. bomb Thursday has nearly tripled. Officials say at least 92 militants died in the blast - up from 36 reported Friday. The area is still being cleared, so the death toll may increase. There is no indication any civilians or military personnel were among the dead. President Ashraf Ghani said Afghan and U.S. forces closely coordinated on the bombing, however his predecessor has strongly denounced the strike and the United States. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday he is unleashing a...

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai accused his successor on Saturday of committing treason by allowing the U.S. military to drop the largest conventional bomb ever used in combat during an operation against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan. Karzai, who also vowed to "stand against America", retains considerable influence within Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group, to which President Ashraf Ghani also belongs. His strong words could signal a broader political backlash that may endanger the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. "How could you permit Americans to bomb your country with a device equal to an atom bomb?" Karzai said at a...

The US's Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb does not cost $314 million, or $16 million, but $170,000 a unit, the US Air Force told Business Insider on Friday. The weapon, whose acronym inspired the nickname "Mother of All Bombs," was produced by the Air Force, not by a third party like Lockheed or Boeing, "so we don't have a standard procurement cost associated with them," an Air Force official said. The $170,000 figure makes sense considering a general-purpose 1,000-pound MK-83 costs about $12,000. The MOAB simply features more high explosives and larger fins to direct the GPS-guided munition. Many outlets,...

Afghan officials say at least 90 Islamic State fighters were killed when the US dropped the "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan - although IS has denied suffering any casualties. IS issued a statement through its propaganda agency Amaq, saying: "Security source to Amaq agency denies any dead or wounded from yesterday's American strike in Nangarhar using a GBU-43/B." The bombing left villagers terrified on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. In the Afghan village of Achin, just a few miles from where the bomb hit, Palstar Khan said: "Last night's bomb was really huge, when it dropped, everywhere, it...

Liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren clammed up when asked her opinion on the recent US strike in Afghanistan, questioning the Trump administration’s use of the ‘Mother of all bombs’ against ISIS fighters and asking what the ‘overall purpose’ of the strike was.

At a news conference in Afghanistan early Friday morning, Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the U.S. military coordinated yesterday's historic bomb attack on ISIS with the government of Afghanistan. "The enemy uses tunnels and minefields to move around the battlefield and protect themselves from attacks from Afghan and U.S. forces," Nicholson said. "This was the right weapon against the right target."

And the generals made the call without requiring Trump's approval That makes sense, of course. You don’t want any president, but especially one with no military background, micromanaging the tactical decisions on the battlefield. If we’e got ISIS where we want them and we have a weapon at the ready that can take out not only a bunch of them, but a bunch of their infrastructure as well, why not? Drop it. And that’s exactly what prompted the military command to do so, without having to first check with the White House:

U.S. forces dropped a 22,000-pound bomb on Islamic State forces in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday. When discussing the strike, Pentagon officials referred to the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast weapon, or MOAB, by its nickname, "the mother of all bombs." That nickname soon appeared in headlines in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, CNN and even Wired. Meanwhile, #MOAB began trending on Twitter. But some on social media were offended by the gendered nature of the phrase.

Chaos erupted after the U.S. dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal on an Islamic State training camp in Afghanistan Thursday, local villagers told The Guardian. The bomb was dropped on Achin district in Nangarhar province, the long-time home of the terrorist group in Afghanistan. ISIS has proven resilient in Afghanistan, often using Nangarhar province to launch attacks on the capital of Kabul. The U.S. said the massive bomb, nicknamed the “mother of all bombs,” was requested to destroy ISIS’s extensive tunnel network in the village. “The earth felt like a boat in a storm,” one villager told The...

The giant bomb U.S. forces dropped Thursday on an ISIS training camp in Afghanistan did not cost $314 million to develop, or $16 million per unit as reported by multiple news outlets.Every news report about cost of the “Mother of All Bombs” relied on a misreading of a 2011 article or a dubious internet website that InfoWars once linked to with a “healthy bit of skepticism.”The actual cost of the bomb is unknown. The actual cost of the program isn’t publicly available because the Mother of All Bombs, officially known as GBU-43 or the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), is manufactured by...

On Thursday night, America launched the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) at ISIS stations in Afghanistan. The air blast bomb, dubbed with the nickname Mother of All Bombs engendered the death of 36 ISIS militants, Afghan officials report. The deaths took place near the Pakistan border, where ISIS is believed to have up to 800 soldiers stationed. The Mother of All Bombs annihilated weapons, ammunition, and underground tunnels, but according to the Afghan Defense Ministry spokesperson, there were no civilian casualties.

Looks like President Trump’s dropping of the MOAB might have had an even bigger impact on Morning Joe than it did on ISIS. In March, the show was in full Apocalypse Now mode about President Trump. Take this excerpt from my item of March 6th: “Joe and Mika waxed apocalyptic, claiming the country is ‘in crisis’ and questioning President Trump’s ‘stability.’ At one point, Mika even seemed to choke up as she said, ‘this is really a dark time which could get worse.’” Cut to today, when, in the wake of foreign policy success on the Russia, China, Syria and...