The actual name of this bomb is Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) but it has long since been known as the Mother of All Bombs because it is the largest non-nuclear weapon the U.S. has produced. Today it was dropped in Afghanistan, the first time the bomb has ever been used in combat. From CNN:
The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, according to the military sources.
They said the target was an ISIS tunnel and cave complex as well as personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province.
CBS News reports the plan to drop the bomb has been in the works for months:
The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities, the Pentagon said in a statement, using the term for the Islamic States Afghanistan branch
The Afghanistan strike had been in the works for a number of months, [CBS News David] Martin reports. The weapon was brought into Afghanistan specifically for this mission.
This map shows the location where the bomb was dropped:
They're claiming fewer than 40 killed from the MOAB.
They could have done this a lot cheaper by flying past and dropping a load of bombs from a few B-52s.
And we only ever made 15 of these MOABs. So we don't have a stockpile of these very expensive bombs.
I wonder if they had a specific technical reason to want to use this, like creating a single explosion that could kill throughout the cave/tunnel complex. They must have had some reason to use a bomb in such short supply.
I wonder why they haven't released any before/after video or photos of the target area. Maybe it doesn't look like such a good use of such an expensive weapon.
BTW, I read some other accounts in the Slimes and elsewhere where they mention using multiple 15,000lb daisycutter bombs against some portions of this same cave system.
So using the 21,000lb MOAB wasn't such a big step up from what we attacked the cave/tunnel system with over 10 years ago.