IS death toll hits 90 from huge US bomb in Afghanistan
Achin district governor Esmail Shinwari says there were “no military and civilian casualties at all
Jalalabad, Afghanistan — The death toll from America’s largest non-nuclear bomb has nearly tripled, with Afghan officials saying Saturday some 90 Islamic State fighters died when the blast smashed their mountain hideout, as US-led forces began clean-up operations. Dubbed the “Mother Of All Bombs”, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb was unleashed in combat for the first time Thursday, hitting IS positions in a remote, rugged area of eastern Nangarhar province. The unprecedented attack triggered global shock waves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered a threat as big as the resurgent Taliban. The bomb smashed the IS’s remote mountain hideouts, a tunnel-and-cave complex that had been mined against conventional ground attacks, engulfing the remote area in a huge mushroom cloud and towering flames. “At least 92 Daesh (IS) fighters were killed in the bombing,” Achin di...
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