US ’mother of all bombs’ killed 36 Islamic State militants in Afghanistan
As many as 36 suspected Islamic State militants were killed in Afghanistan when the United States dropped “the mother of all bombs,” its largest non-nuclear device ever unleashed in combat, the Afghan defence ministry said on Friday. Thursday’s strike came as US President Donald Trump dispatches his first high-level delegation to Kabul, amid uncertainty about his plans for the nearly 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan. The deaths have not been independently verified, but ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said no civilians were harmed in the massive blast that targeted a network of caves and tunnels. The device, also known as the "mother of all bombs," is a GPS-guided munition that had never before been used in combat since its first test in 2003, when it produced a mushroom cloud visible from 32 km away. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned the use of the weapon on Afghan soil. "This is not the war on terror, but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country...
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