U.S. Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ In Afghanistan
After sending an air strike to destroy Syrian airfields only a few days ago, the United States government has now ramped up its efforts to fight ISIS by dropping its biggest non-nuclear bomb in Eastern Afghanistan.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, which the military has coined the “mother of all bombs” or MOAB, was detonated on a range of tunnels the government believes ISIS militants were using for transportation. The Guardian reports that 36 suspected ISIS militants were killed.
The MOAB was initially created during the Iraq War but was never used in combat until Thursday.
A #MOAB bomb strikes #ISIS cave & tunnel systems in eastern #Afghanistan. The strike was designed to minimize risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces pic.twitter.com/7pfBYQzk5F
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 14, 2017
Following the operation, Trump was quick to take congratulate the military for a job well done.
“Everybody knows exactly what happened. What I do is I authorize my military. We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done a job as usual. We have given them total authorization and that’s what they’re doing and frankly that’s why they’ve been so successful lately.”
He also took the opportunity to metaphorically puff out his chest and comment on whether or not the MOAB drop should send a message to North Korea, whose representatives recently criticized Trump’s tweets for aggravating their relations.
I don’t know if this sends a message; it doesn’t make any difference if it does or not,” Trump said. “North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of.”
Concerns over Trump’s ability to interact with other countries and foreign threats continue to grow as he becomes more confrontational in his actions. While this aggressive stance is exactly what some citizens think we needed, others are cautious that it could lead to another major war.