Kabul: Afghan officials said that 94 militants were killed in a massive US bomb blast targeting Islamic State’s regional affiliate. Ismail Shinwari, governor of Achin district in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, where the 20,000-pound bomb struck, said there were no reports of civilian casualties.
The dead included several leaders of the Islamic State affiliate, which is loosely connected to the main militant organization based in Iraq and Syria, Afghan officials said. US military officials said the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb - dubbed the “mother of all bombs,” the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat - targeted an underground network of caves and tunnels that Islamic State fighters had used for weeks to evade an ongoing operation by US and Afghan forces.
The Afghan government said it had worked with the US military to coordinate the bomb strike, a sharp escalation of the U.S. fight against Islamic State in Afghanistan.But the use of the massive weapon has also drawn criticism, including from former President Hamid Karzai, who told a gathering in Kabul that it amounted to “a national treason.”
US helicopters continued to launch strikes near the village, providing cover for Afghan troops and US military advisors on the ground. The area in remote Achin district, close to the Pakistani border, is considered one of the main redoubts of a militant group estimated to number from 600 to 800 fighters.
