Massive US bomb damaged houses in Kurram

Dozens of houses develop massive cracks in Malana village

PARACHINAR\JALALABAD: Shockwaves from the massive bomb the US military dropped on a ‘tunnel-caves complex’ used by Da’ish fighters in Afghanistan have also shaken dozens of houses off their foundations in the Kurram tribal region of Pakistan.

The US military announced on Thursday night that it had dropped a GBU-43/B bomb – commonly known as ‘Mother of All Bombs’ – on the hideouts of Da’ish in the Achin district of Nangarhar province killing, according to a revised tally, 90 fighters of the terrorist group.

The unprecedented attack triggered global shockwaves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as a ‘testing ground for the weapon’, and against a militant group that is not considered a threat as big as the Taliban.



“Several houses, Imambargahs and other structures in our village have been damaged,” Irfan Hussain, a resident of Malana, told The Express Tribune. “Initially, we thought that a massive earthquake has hit the area,” he said while referring to the day the device was dropped. Malana is a village in Kurram Agency which is located near the border with Afghanistan.

A spokesperson for the local political administration confirmed the development, saying, “We are trying to assess the damages in Malana.” He added that the cracks in the buildings were much bigger than initially thought of.

He added that it was only in the morning that they got to know it wasn’t an earthquake but the US military had dropped the massive bomb in Nangarhar province across the border.



Meanwhile, Afghan authorities on Saturday reported a jump in fatalities from the huge bombing, declaring some 90 Da’ish fighters dead, as US-led ground forces sought to advance on their mountain hideouts.

“At least 92 Da’ish fighters were killed in the bombing,” Achin district governor Esmail Shinwari told AFP on Saturday, adding that three tunnels that sheltered the insurgents had been destroyed.

Shinwari said American and Afghan ground forces were slowly advancing on the mountainous area, which is blanketed with landmines, to clear the site, but there were still some pockets of resistance from insurgents. “New fighters have probably come from the other side of the border [Pakistan] to collect the dead bodies,” he claimed.



Nangarhar provincial spokesman Attaullah Khogyani gave a death toll of 90, far higher than the initial toll of 36 fighters given by Afghan officials. The dead included the brother of the late Da’ish leader Hafiz Saeed, who was killed in a US air strike last year, officials said.

Shinwari insisted there were ‘no military and civilian casualties at all’.

Security experts say Da’ish 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.



An elderly man who lives close to the bombing site in Achin's Momand Dara area said the blast was so piercingly loud that his infant granddaughter was experiencing hearing loss.

The massive 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 while conducting anti-Da’ish operations. (With additional input from AFP)