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Ex-Afghan President Hamid Karzai tells Al Jazeera US bomb reportedly targeting ISIL is a threat to Afghan sovereignty
KABUL: An attack that saw the United States drop the largest non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan was a “brutal act” against Afghan people, the environment and the country’s sovereignty, Hamid Karzai, former president, has told Al Jazeera.
The 9,797kg GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) was unleashed in combat for the first time on Thursday, targeting a complex of caves and tunnels used by ISIL fighters in Nangarhar province, according the US army.
Dubbed the “Mother Of All Bombs”, the device can devastate the area around its landing of a radius of more than one mile (1.6km).
“This was an inhuman act, a brutal act against an innocent country, against innocent people, against our land, against our sovereignty, against our soil and against our future,” Karzai said in Kabul.
“A bomb of that magnitude has consequences for the environment, for our lives, for our plants, for our water, for our soil – this is poison.”
At least 90 ISIL fighters were killed in the attack, according to the US and Afghan armies.
For the most part, Afghan officials welcomed the bombing, saying it was a step towards security. They have also said that there were no civilian casualties.
But Karzai, who was president from 2004 until 2014, said the US should stop using Afghanistan as a “testing ground” and re-engage with Afghans towards a peaceful solution.
If these conditions are met, he said, “they [US] can stay on – if the Afghan people agree to it. If they continue this militant approach, this heavy-handed military approach in Afghanistan, then of course I want them out of the country.”
The massive bomb was dropped after fighting intensified over the past week and US-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area.
A US soldier was killed on April 8 in Nangarhar while conducting operations against ISIL, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and is also known as ISIS.
Karzai said he was speaking up because many Afghan officials – some of whom were part of his own cabinet – had endorsed the bombing.
“I considered it a treason and I stood up against them, and I will continue,” he said.
“This poison will be there for years and years to come. How can we allow our country to be used this way and why? How many [ISIL fighters] have they killed, 100, 200, 300?
“Why should Afghanistan suffer in such a massive way with a bomb so big, so dangerous that they themselves call it the ‘mother of all bombs’.
