Watch US drop the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) on ISIS caves in Afghanistan

In another show of military force after the bombing of a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles, the US military yesterday dropped a GBU-43/B, colloquially known as the Mother Of All Bombs or MOAB, to target caves built by Islamic State fighter in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.

The MOAB was developed for use in the Iraq war and first tested in 2003. It is dropped from an aircraft on a pallet. A MOAB is a 21,600 pound, Global Positioning System (GPS)-guided munition that is US's most powerful non-nuclear bomb. Its main effect is a massive blast wave - said to stretch for 1.6 kms.

In a video posted by US Central Command's official Twitter handle, @CENTCOM, one can see the exact moment of impact and the cloud of smoke that rises following the explosion.





@CENTCOM also tweeted that “last night’s complex strike in Nangarhar is part of our campaign to destroy ISIS in Afghanistan in 2017”.

.@USFOR_A We have US Forces at site and we see no evidence of civilian casualties nor have there been reports #Achin - GEN Nicholson CDR

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 14, 2017

US President Donald Trump hailed the US military's "very, very successful" strike on the Islamic State caves in Afghanistan with the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat.

"It was really another successful job, we are very proud of our military. We are so proud of our military, it was another successful event," Trump told reporters at the White House.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that the tunnels and caves IS fighters used to "move around freely" were targeted as they make it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area. Thirty six ISIS fighters were left dead by the bomb.

"The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group, we must deny them operational space, which we did."