ISIL death toll more than 90 from huge US bomb in Afghanistan

Jalalabad, Afghanistan // More than 90 ISIL fighters were killed by the US military’s largest non-nuclear bomb – a figure three times higher than the earliest assessments.

Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar province, said the number of ISIL dead was up to 94 from the 36 reported a day earlier from the bomb site in Achin district.

“Fortunately there is no report of civilians being killed in the attack,” Mr Khogyani said.

The US attack on the tunnel complex near the Pakistan border killed at least four ISIL leaders, Mr Khogyani said. He said a clearance operation to assess the site of the attack was continuing.

Dubbed the Mother Of All Bombs, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast was used in combat for the first time on Thursday.

Some condemned the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered a threat as big as the resurgent Taliban.

The bomb smashed ISIL’s hideouts, a tunnel-and-cave complex that had been mined against conventional ground attacks, engulfing the remote area in a huge mushroom cloud and towering flames.

Achin district governor Esmail Shinwari also said the number of ISIL militants killed was more than 90.

Mr Shinwari claimed there were “no military and civilian casualties at all”, adding that Afghan commandos and American troops are carrying out clean-up operations in the area.

Security experts said ISIL had built their redoubts close to civilian homes, but the government said thousands of local families had already fled the area in recent months of fighting.

The bomb was dropped after fighting intensified over the past week and US-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area. An American special forces soldier was killed last Saturday in Nangarhar.

“The enemy had created bunkers, tunnels and extensive mine fields, and this weapon was used to reduce those obstacles so that we could continue our offensive in Nangarhar,” General John Nicholson, the most senior US commander in Afghanistan, said on Friday.

President Ashraf Ghani threw his support behind the bombardment, saying it was “designed to support the efforts of the Afghan National Security Forces and US forces conducting clearance operations in the region.”

Mr Ghani said there was “close coordination” between the US military and the Afghan government on the operation, and they were careful to prevent any civilian casualties.

But former president Hamid Karzai on Saturday criticised both the Afghan and US governments for the attack in Nangarhar. Addressing a gathering in Kabul, Mr Karzai said that allowing the US to carry out the bombing was “treason” and an insult to Afghanistan.

The bombing came only a week after US president Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack, and as China warned of the potential for conflict amid rising US tensions with North Korea.

Mr Trump hailed the mission in Achin district as “very, very successful”.

But some analysts called the action “disproportionate”.

“The Trump administration made a lot of noise with this bomb, but the general state of play on the ground remains the same: The Taliban continues to wage a formidable and ferocious insurgency. ISIL, by comparison, is a sideshow,” said Michael Kugelman of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

“Still, from a strategic standpoint, there is an unsettling takeaway here: The US pulled off a huge shock and awe mission against an enemy that isn’t even the top threat to the US in Afghanistan. The Taliban continues to sit pretty.”

ISIL, notorious for its reign of terror in Syria and Iraq, has made inroads into Afghanistan in recent years, attracting disaffected members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban as well as Uzbek Islamists.

But the group has been steadily losing ground in the face of heavy pressure both from US air strikes and a ground offensive led by Afghan forces.

The Taliban, a much bigger insurgent group, is expected to soon announce the start of this year’s fighting season.

The militants were blamed for killing at least 11 civilians with a roadside bomb on Friday that destroyed their vehicle in the southern province of Helmand.

The blast occurred when the passengers were travelling from remote Nawa district to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

“The blast was powerful and all those on board the van were killed,” a government spokesman said.

Helmand police chief Agha Noor Kentoz blamed the Taliban for the blast, saying the road had been mined to target Afghan security forces who frequently use it.

* Agence France-Presse