washington
\nThe United States is considering using its biggest non-nuclear bomb against Iran if President Donald Trump should decide to renew combat in the war that has hit a deadlock, CNN reported Thursday.
\nThe military is planning for the potential use of the GBU-43\/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (Moab) bomb \u2014 better known by its nickname, the \u201cMother Of All Bombs\u201d \u2014 to target Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites, according to the news outlet, which quoted officials familiar with the matter.
\nTrump is trying to boost his low approval ratings ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections, with polls showing the unpopular war in Iran and the fuel and other price rises it has caused are hurting his Republican Party.
\nDiplomatic efforts to end the conflict, which erupted with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February, have been at an impasse since the summer.
\nBut officials have raised doubts over the efficacy of the bomb if it were deployed, particularly its ability to destroy suspected underground nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic.
\n\u201cThe Moab is a massive information operation type weapon that is great for huge area clearance but not much else,\u201d a source familiar with the plans told CNN.
\n\u201cIt is definitely not designed as a deep penetration warhead.\u201d
\nThe United States and Israel have said the war was necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons \u2014 a goal Tehran has long denied pursuing. There are also concerns over the possibility of civilian casualties from such a huge weapon. Washington has in recent weeks dialled back military operations in favour of economic pressure. AFP has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
\nIn 2017, the US military in Afghanistan dropped the \u201cMoab\u201d to target Daesh hideouts in a complex of tunnels and bunkers, killing more than 90 militants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
washington The United States is considering using its biggest non-nuclear bomb against Iran if President Donald Trump should decide to renew combat in the war that has hit a deadlock, CNN reported Thursday. The military is planning for the potential use of the GBU-43\/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (Moab) bomb \u2014 better known by its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104439,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104429\/revisions\/104439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}