WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Thursday, US military aircraft dropped the 22,000-pound MOAB, nicknamed the "Mother of All Bombs," on underground tunnels used by Daesh in Afghanistan. MOAB is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal.
“The success of deploying MOAB is not body count but the destruction of safe havens and command and control centers for ISIL [Daesh],” Graham stated in the first of two Twitter posts.
“Equally important is message sent to our enemies — ISIL [Daesh] and others — [that] days of half-measures & leading from behind are coming to an end.”
The use of the weapon in Thursday’s attack was the first time it had been used in combat, and only the third time the United States had ever detonated one of the weapons, which cost $16 million apiece.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday that he had not personally authorized the weapon’s use, but had given his generals expanded authority to carry out attacks on Daesh as they see fit.
Military analysts told Sputnik that the United States’ decision the use the MOAB will have no discernible effect in changing the course of the war in Afghanistan.
