Afghans react to huge U.S. bomb with shock, awe and mixed feelings

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Isis has claimed that the so-called "mother of all bombs" dropped by USA forces on a mountain hideout in Afghanistan did not kill any militants.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said 36 militants were killed, though local officials and residents put the number much higher.

The U.S. military April 13 dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed as "Mother of All Bombs", on a tunnel complex of ISIS-Khorasan, a regional affiliate of the terror group, in Achin district of Afghanistan's Nanagarh province, close to the Pakistani border.

Slamming the government for allowing the USA forces to carry out the strike, Karzai said the move would be a national treason if the government had approved the use of the massive bomb.

Dubbed the Mother Of All Bombs, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast was used in combat for the first time on Thursday.

He made it clear there will be no sanctuary for ISIS in Afghanistan and said: "We are committed to Afghanistan in this fight".

"This was the right weapon against the right target", Gen. John Nicholson, commander for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said at a news conference.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzi condemned the attack, calling it was "brutal and inhuman".

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"This was the right weapon against the right target".

Since then, the number of ISIS fighters has dropped to between 600 and 700 from up to 3,000, according to US officials.

Thursday's strike came as United States president Donald Trump dispatches his first high-level delegation to Kabul, amid uncertainty about his plans for the almost 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai tweeted: "This is not the war on terror, but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as testing ground for new and unsafe weapons".

Residents in Afghan villages near the target area felt Thursday's powerful strike.

Donald Trump said the action was "very, very successful", but some analysts have criticised it as "disproportionate". It came a week after he authorized a United States missile strike against a Syrian government air base - the first U.S. strike against the Syrian government in the country's six-year civil war. "We thought it had happened right in front of our house", he said.

In Helmand province, at least 11 civilians were killed and one wounded in two roadside bomb blasts late Friday evening, said Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor. However, now the group has been dramatically degraded to no more than 800 fighters.

The exact effects of the military's decision to drop the device on the remote area are still yet to emerge, though a network of tunnels and caves used by Isis were reportedly wiped out.

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