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ACHIN DISTRICT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The remote site in eastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat earlier this month bears signs of the weapon's power, but little evidence of how much material and human damage it inflicted.
Reuters photos and video footage - some of the first images from journalists allowed to get close to the site - reveal a scarred mountainside, burned trees and some ruined mud-brick structures.
They did not offer any clues as to the number of casualties or their identities.
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Since the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb was dropped on a fortified tunnel complex used by suspected Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar province, access to the site has been controlled by U.S. forces who are battling the militant group alongside Afghan troops.
The U.S. military has said that ongoing fighting had prevented media or independent investigators from visiting the site, and Afghan soldiers said special forces from both countries were still engaging the enemy in the area.
A Reuters witness viewed the site from several hundred yards (meters) away, because of what troops he was accompanying said were continued threats in the area.
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At the site where the 'mother of all bombs' dropped
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Afghan Special Forces watch at the site where a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
A damaged house and burnt trees are seen at the site where a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces patrol at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces patrol at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces walk down from a roof of a house which was used by suspected Islamic State militants at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', that struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces inspect inside a cave which was used by suspected Islamic State militants at the site where a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces inspect inside a cave which was used by suspected Islamic State militants at the site where a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Burn trees are seen the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces keep watch at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Burn trees are seen the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
A member of Afghan Special Forces unit walks down from a roof of a house which was used by suspected Islamic State militants at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', that struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces patrol at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
Afghan Special Forces patrol at the site of a MOAB, or ''mother of all bombs'', which struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz
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While the 21,600-pound (9,797-kg) GBU-43 is billed as the U.S. military's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, its destructive power, equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, pales in comparison with the relatively small atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War Two.
They had blasts equivalent to between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of TNT.
Within a few hundred feet of the apparent blast site, leaves remained intact on trees, belying initial expectations that the explosion may have sent a destructive blast wave for up to a mile.
Afghan officials have said nearly 100 militants and no civilians were killed, but the remoteness of the area, the presence of Islamic State fighters, and, more recently, American security forces, has left those claims unverified.
U.S. commanders said the bomb was used to target a tunnel complex and destroy landmines and other booby traps laid by Islamic State militants holed up in the mountains.
No obvious crater or bodies were visible at the scene, according to the Reuters witness.
TUNNELS INTACT NEARBY
Several hundred yards from the strike, Afghan soldiers explored a large tunnel dug beneath a home.
The entrance within the home descended into tunnels large enough for a person to stand in upright, strung with electric cables and light bulbs and strewn with rugs, cushions, and men's clothes and shoes.
One cave was said to have once held prisoners, but was unused at the time of the strike, according to soldiers at the scene.
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters on Thursday that U.S. troops would not be digging into the site to determine how many people may have been killed.
"Frankly digging into tunnels to count dead bodies is probably not a good use of our troops' time when they are chasing down the enemy that is still capable," he said.
The strike came as President Donald Trump declared a focus on Islamic State, and was part of a larger operation to clear Islamic State militants from their strongholds in the mountains along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In March, U.S. forces conducted 79 "counter-terror strikes" against Islamic State in Nangarhar, killing as many as 200 militants, according to the U.S. military command in Kabul.
U.S. military officials estimate there are about 600 to 800 Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar, but also in the neighboring province of Kunar.
Taliban militants, meanwhile, remain the dominant insurgent group in Afghanistan.
A Taliban attack on a large Afghan army headquarters in the north of the country on Friday killed more than 140 soldiers, in what is believed to be the deadliest single attack on Afghan forces since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
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The war in Afghanistan has been going on for such a long period of time that its almost become a ritual for a new administration to take a bottom-up, comprehensive look at Americas war strategy during its first two months on the job. The movie has been repetitively played over the last decade and a half: the generals running the war are ordered by the new president and his national security adviser to assess whether the plan is working; the generals conduct the review, which usually concludes with the commanders requesting more U.S. troops on the ground; and the administration (with varying degrees of resistance) eventually provides the commanders the authority and resources that they have forwarded to the White House. President Obama was a bit of anomaly in this regard. He did, after all, set a timeline for troop withdrawals that the Pentagon wasnt especially pleased about. But even Obama authorized nearly fifty thousand additional American troops into the conflict during his first year in office.
President Donald Trump is continuing this movie. He recently sent National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster on a two-day trek to Afghanistan to determine whether the strategy, or the means of accomplishing that strategy, is in need of fine-tuning. McMaster met with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and senior Afghan security officials during his trip. He had nothing but kind words for the Afghan leadership during television interviews. In recent years, at a period of our maximum effort, we didn't have as reliable a partner in the Afghan government as we would've liked, McMaster told ABCs This Week. Now we have a much more reliable Afghan partner and we have reduced considerably the degree and scope of our effort.
The Trump administration has said very little about the longest war in American history. News about Afghanistan is hardly reported from the mainstream media; people have either lost interest in the conflict altogether or have simply come to the conclusion that the intricacies of tribal politics in the country are so difficult to understand that you need to have a PhD in sociology to grasp the constantly shifting alliances and ethnic power struggles. McMaster is one of most knowledgable and celebrated Army officers of his generation, but even he doesn't have the bandwidth.
Everybody has ideas and concepts for what the United States can do to salvage a war that is going in the wrong direction for Washingtons Afghan allies. Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, former commanding Gen. David Petraeus and former diplomat Earl Anthony Wayne recently wrote that whatever the Trump administration does, it must take a holistic perspective. The trio suggested that the administration stay far away from the annual policy reviews that have dominated past U.S. administrations. Instead, the Trump administration should create an integrated multiyear strategy that presents a sustainable way forward, they said. What that strategy might be is in the eye of the beholder.
In many ways, Neumann, Petraeus and Wayne are absolutely right: the United States would be served well with a honest assessment about how to turn the situation in Afghanistan around. But yet another review from yet another administration would be akin to going through the motions if U.S. officials continue to put hubris and hope above realism and history. If the past sixteen years of war have told us anything, it's that even the mighty United States of America cannot mold a nation in its own image or instill a set of democratic principles within a society like Afghanistan, which has run on tribalism, parochialism and corruption for centuries. McMaster may be adamant that the Afghan Taliban must be defeated for there to be long-term peace and reconciliation in Afghanistanone has to admire the generals can-do attitude. But it would be an enormous mistake for U.S. officials working on the Afghan file to use McMasters words as an excuse to cease asking the tough question that has been buried underneath all of the debates about American troop levels: when is enough, enough?
There is about as much chance of President Trump withdrawing all American military personnel from Afghanistan as Steve Bannon waking up one morning and embracing globalism. Republican hawks like John McCain, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton would view a full withdrawalindeed, any withdrawalas an act of appeasement that will produce impacts even worse than Obamas premature withdrawal of surge troops in 2011. And there are very good arguments against leaving Afghanistan completely. But if Trump is genuinely committed to shaking up Washingtons foreign-policy establishment and thinking outside-the-box, then he must at least ask the same question that a world-class businessman never ceases to ask when a business transaction starts to get wobbly: is it time to decrease an investment that is showing very little returns? If the answer is yes, then is it time to recalibrate our investment strategy and shoot for a safer bet with lower returns?
These questions are undeniably uncomfortable for many in the U.S. military, State Department and intelligence community who have dedicated years to Afghanistan in order to provide it with a future that is more stable, an economy that is more resilient and a political system that actually works for the Afghan people. But however uncomfortable the questions might be, its time to get real.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
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By Vipul Vivek
The monarchy of Bhutan has remained the biggest beneficiary -- by amount and share -- of Indian foreign aid for 17 years, but over the last nine years, Afghanistan has made it to the distant second spot, preferred over traditional recipients Nepal and Bangladesh, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of Indian foreign ministry data.
Although its share of foreign aid is falling and that of African countries, listed as a group, is growing, Bhutan has remained India's unfailing priority because of its strategic location, its dependence on India and its hydropower potential. Indian aid to Sri Lanka and the Maldives increased fastest, according to aid data between the financial years 2000-01 and 2016-17.
However, the averages over this period conceal substantial fluctuations in aid. For instance, while aid to Sri Lanka fell 69 per cent year-on-year in 2016-17, it rose 118 per cent and 166 per cent in 2012-13 and 2009-10. Similarly, while aid to the Maldives rose 45 per cent in 2016-17, it dropped 89 per cent in 2012-13 after rising nearly 25 times in the previous year.
Among the countries to have benefited most by India's reallocation of aid is Afghanistan.
In eight of last 10 years, Afghanistan makes it to second spot
Before 2007-08, the foreign ministry did not even individually report aid for Afghanistan . Since then, it has been the second biggest beneficiary, by share,in eight of the following 10 years.
In the pre-2007-08 period, Nepal was the second-largest recipient in all years except three, when Bangladesh held that position. Over the 17 years we analysed, Afghanistan received the least aid of the 12 major regions reported by the ministry, the allocation shrinking more than a quarter by amount.
Among regions for which the ministry reports data as a group, African countries are the only significant beneficiaries: India's aid grew 57 times between 2000-01 and 2016-17, rising 4.38 percentage points over the same period. African countries, as a group, were the second biggest beneficiary in 2003-04 and 2004-05 among all regions, countries as well as groups of countries, taken together.
The only constant in this story is Bhutan, but other countries in other regions have been eating into its share at a time when questions are being raised about India's policy of aid to Bhutan's hydropower sector. By change in share over the 17 years, it is better only than Afghanistan, with Bhutan's aid having fallen by 10.45 percentage points.
(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Vipul Vivek is an analyst. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
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