‘The US Military dropping the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat enflamed social media users on Thursday, drawing comments from many prominent figures including Edward Snowden.
The mega GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), dubbed the “Mother of all bombs”, is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever to be used in a combat setting. US forces dropped it in the Achin district of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan at 7pm local time on Thursday.
National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden noted the strike was designed to destroy a network of tunnels that the US itself had funded during the 1980s when CIA backed Jihadists were fighting the Soviet Union.
The colossal bomb, over 30 feet long and weighing more than 21,000 pounds, creates a blast radius stretching a mile in each direction. It is made of a thin aluminium skin that is designed to “maximise the blast effect,” according to Frederick Davis of the Air force Research Laboratory, who designed the destructive device.’
