What is the MOAB bomb, why is it called the Mother of all Bombs and is it the most powerful bomb dropped on Afghanistan?
The GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb is one of the most powerful weapons ever created.
The MOAB weighs in at more than 10,000 kilograms and contains a huge 8,164 kilograms of explosives.
The Air Force calls it the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb but it was nicknamed “Mother Of All Bombs” because of its acronym.
Its blast is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. By contrast, the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima had a blast yield of 15 tons of TNT.
The first time it was ever used in warfare was in a US Air Force attack where it was dropped on a cave complex believed to be used by ISIS fighters in the Achin district of Nangarhar province in Aghanistan.
It was designed by the US Air Force in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It was designed to scare Saddam Hussein’s troops into surrendering through psychological warfare.
