KABUL (SW): The top U.S. military commander, Gen. John Nicholson has said the ‘tactical targets’ have been achieved with the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ (MOAB) attack on the Daesh in eastern Nangarhar province.
Addressing a press conference, the U.S. General said the target is to eliminate Daesh this year in Afghanistan. He hailed the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces (ANSDF)’s brave campaign against the militants, and said the latest aerial operation in Nangarhar’s Achin district would help pave way for more effective ground offensives.
Earlier on Friday, the Kabul government defended the dropping of (MOAB) by the U.S. forces a day earlier on suspected Daesh hideouts in eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan. According to the U.S. – Forces Afghanistan, the bomb was dropped at 7:32 p.m. local time Thursday on a tunnel complex in Achin district of Nangarhar province. Officially known as a GBU-43B, or massive ordnance air blast weapon, the MOAB unleashes 11 tons of explosives. Just last week, a U.S. Special Forces member was killed in Nangarhar fighting Daesh.
Arg, the Presidential Palace in Kabul said early on Friday the U.S. and NATO forces were in close coordination with the Afghan officials prior to dropping this largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the US military. “In this aerial bombing on the Daesh’s centres, tunnels and hideouts in Achin district, for which the Afghan government was taken into confidence, the Daesh militants and enemies of Afghanistan have sustained heavy casualties”, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani said in a statement.
Ghani stressed that due to close coordination, the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces (ANSDF) and the international forces in Afghanistan have avoided all sorts of civilian casualties during such offensives. “Fundamentalism and terrorism are major obstacles in the way of peace, stability and development for the region and the world, therefore it should be dealt with a clear strategy without differentiating between the ‘good and the bad’ terrorism”, he said.
Meanwhile, former president Hamid Karzai, and a number of other figures have condemned the attack, pronouncing it a mere display of the U.S. might.
ENDS
