Trump orders Pentagon to ready ‘FATHER OF ALL BOMBS’ for use against North Korea
THE US military is preparing to drop the “father of all bombs” (FOAB) – the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal – on North Korea, a defence analyst has claimed.
By Joshua Nevett
DailyStar.co.uk
7th February 2018
In April last year, the US military detonated a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) dubbed the “mother of all bombs” on ISIS tunnels in Afghanistan.
Dramatic footage of the extraordinary attack – the first time the large-yield 18,000 bomb had been used on the battlefield – stunned the world.
Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, the MOAB was described by analysts as the largest non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal at the time.
However, another colossal explosive called the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) has trumped the MOAB, according to Michael T Klare, a professor of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College.
The apocalyptic weapon, known as the “father of all bombs” (FOAB), is packed with 30,000-pounds of explosives – heavier than two African elephants.
Initially, the Pentagon intended to use the FOAB to destroy underground nuclear facilities in Iran.
Now, amid simmering tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the “GBU-57 is now being readied for use against North Korea”, Klare, a defence commentator, said.
Writing for The Nation, security expert Klare brooded over the possibility that the US military is planning to use the FOABs to destroy Kim Jong-un’s cache of underground nuclear weapons.
He wrote: “It is no secret that the Defense Department is preparing for possible preventive attacks on North Korean nuclear and missile facilities, supposedly intended to prevent the Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the continental United States.
“National Security Adviser HR McMaster has openly called for strikes of this sort, sometimes described as the ‘bloody nose’ option.”
The FOAB may be the “solution” to the problem of provoking “massive retaliation” by North Korea that could leave “vast numbers of civilian casualties”, he said.
Three B-2 stealth bombers were sent to to Andersen Air Force Base in the US territory of Guam – just miles from North Korea – in January.
The US Air Force regularly dispatches military aircraft to the island, in the Western Pacific, for routine displays of its firepower.
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