The head of U.S. Special Operations Command defended Thursday the decision to drop the Pentagon’s largest non-nuclear bomb — nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" — in Afghanistan last month.

“I think it was the right employment of a weapon system ... to avoid the more extensive loss of life,” Gen. Raymond Thomas said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

The U.S. military in April dropped a GBU-43B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb on a tunnel complex in Afghanistan used by ISIS fighters. The strike was the first time the U.S. used its "mother of all bombs" in combat, which reportedly killed at least 94 ISIS fighters.

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Thomas was responding to a question from Sen. Tom Cotton Tom Bryant CottonLoeffler calls for hearing in wake of Netflix's 'Cuties' Health care in the crosshairs with new Trump Supreme Court list Cruz says he wouldn't accept Supreme Court nomination MORE (R-Ark.), who asked about the authority involved in the decision.

“There was some was media controversy about that, about why that bomb was deployed,” Cotton said.

Cotton noted that the “the secretary of Defense, nor the national security advisor, nor the president” were involved in the decision.

“Deciding what kind of ordinance to employ, would you say that’s a decision for the commanders in the field to make?” Cotton asked. “They don’t need to get approval from anyone 8,000 miles away in Washington?”

Thomas replied that the decision to drop the bomb was made by U.S. Forces Afghanistan head Gen. John Nicholson, and said it “could actually cause great risk to the force” if commanders had to receive approval from leaders in Washington.

The MOAB is roughly 21,000 pounds and has a blast range of 1 mile. Fewer than 20 were made in 2003.

President Trump said after the strike that he had authorized the military to use such munitions.

"We have the greatest military in the world, and they’ve done a job as usual so we have given them total authorization,” he told reporters on Thursday. “And that’s what they’re doing. And frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately.”