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News > World

Massive US Bomb Tantamount to 'Treason': Ex-Afghan President

  • The GBU-43/B is launched from a MC-130E Combat Talon I at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida on November 21, 2003.

    The GBU-43/B is launched from a MC-130E Combat Talon I at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida on November 21, 2003. | Photo: Reuters

Published 15 April 2017
Opinion

Karzai, who also vowed to "stand against America," retains considerable influence within Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group. 

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai accused his successor on Saturday of committing treason by allowing the U.S. military to drop the largest conventional bomb ever used in combat during an operation against alleged Islamic State group militants in Afghanistan.

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Karzai, who also vowed to "stand against America," retains considerable influence within Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group, to which President Ashraf Ghani also belongs. His strong words could signal a broader political backlash that may endanger the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

Afghan defense officials have said the 21,600-pound, 9,797-kg, GBU-43, dropped late on Thursday in the eastern province of Nangarhar, had killed nearly 100 suspected militants, though they acknowledged this was an estimate and not based on an actual body count.

"How could you permit Americans to bomb your country with a device equal to an atom bomb?" Karzai said at a public event in Kabul, questioning Ghani's decision. "If the government has permitted them to do this, that was wrong and it has committed a national treason."

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