US Air Force tests ‘mother of all bombs’ as message to Iraq

THE US Air Force has dropped a 21,000-pound MOAB bomb on a range in northwest Florida in a successful first live test of a powerful new weapon nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.”

Defence officials suggested the test was a message to Iraq ahead of a possible war about the might of the US military.

“Obviously, anything we have in the arsenal, anything that's in almost any stage of development, could be used,” against Iraq, said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A C-131 Samaritan aircraft dropped the bomb on a test range at Eglin Air Force Base a minute or two after 2pm local time, a base spokeswoman, Senior Airman Nicholasa Brown, said.

The explosion sounded “just like thunder,” Brown said from an office on the east side of the 724-square-mile base, adding that “We barely even heard it.” The test took place on a range of the west side of the base.

The bomb packs 40% more power than America's current most powerful non-nuclear bomb, the 15,000-pound Daisy Cutter, which was used to pound the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The MOAB is guided by global positioning satellites, an Eglin spokeswoman said. It spreads a flammable mist over the target then ignites it, producing a highly destructive blast. The acronym stands for “Massive Ordnance Air Burst” but military officials have nicknamed it the “Mother Of All Bombs.”