Use of GBU-43 bomb for the first time against so called Islamic State target in Afghanistan

What impact will MOAB have in the fight against ISIL?

The US military’s dropping of the largest conventional bomb in eastern Afghanistan has drawn mixed reaction.

The US has dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat in eastern Afghanistan on a series of caves used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) group, according to the Pentagon.

Afghanistan’s defence ministry says the 9,797kg GBU-43 – nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” – did not cause any civilians deaths.

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But not everyone is in favour of the strike. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai called it a “brutal misuse of our country”.

So what difference will it make to the fight against ISIL? And how big a threat does the armed group pose to the country?

Presenter: Sohail Rahman

Guests:

Mirwais Yasini – Member of the Afghan parliament, representing Nangarhar province where the bomb was dropped

Omar Samad – Former senior adviser to Afghanistan’s chief executive

Vyacheslav Matuzov – a former Russian diplomat