Military Reporting

Whilst media interest in the story of the MOAB strike was significant, military commentary on the other hand was and still remains muted, save for a few limited press statements and briefings. The US Military are yet to release a full damage assessment of the MOAB strike.

Casualties

On 15 April, Afghanistan’s defence ministry reported that 94 militants including four major commanders had been killed in the strike, along with zero civilian casualties. Whilst it is understood the assessment of dead militants might be based on detailed military intelligence reporting, the precision around the number of exactly 94 militant deaths seems overly precise, especially given the nature of the ongoing conflict in the area and the relatively confined area of the MOAB blast.

Likewise, the claim of zero civilian casualties seems anomalous. Conflict has been ongoing in this area between Daesh, the Taliban and subsequently the Afghan government security forces dating back to mid-2015. Over this time, local residents in the area of the MOAB strike have been driven from their homes by Daesh. In many cases, Pakistani Orakzai families moved into these vacated settlements. Post-strike satellite imagery and ground photography shows active crops in the fields belonging to the settlement at the centre of the strike. With up to a month until harvest time, it is unlikely these crops would have been left unattended. Indeed, it is likely that some of the farmers tending these fields would have been residing within the buildings of the settlement obliterated by the MOAB strike. It is therefore entirely possible that the count of casualties has included working-age male farmers rather than solely militants, as the Afghan defence ministry has indicated.

The BBC reported that it is hard to know how many were killed by the MOAB strike. Ultimately, the real number of militants and civilians killed is likely to remain unknown.

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