Here's how much the 'mother of all bombs' the US just dropped on ISIS in Afghanistan actually cost

pulse

April 13, 2017 9:23 PM

A lot of people tossed around a figure of $314 million per bomb, but that's how much 20 Massive Ordnance Air Blasts, or MOABs, cost the US military.

moab mother of all bombs.JPG

Some of President Donald Trump's critics were quick to decry the cost of dropping the "mother of all bombs" on an ISIS target in Afghanistan on Thursday.

But the number heavily cited across social media, $314 million, was how much the US military paid for 20 such bombs, technically called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast.

The US Air Force dropped one MOAB — the largest nonnuclear bomb in the US's arsenal — on an ISIS target in a remote part of far northeast Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the goal was to destroy "a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area."

One MOAB costs about $16 million, and 20 have been produced, according to the military equipment site Deagel.com.

Many celebrities and other Trump critics used Twitter to express their frustration at the administration authorizing the use of such an expensive bomb, but they cited the total cost instead:

For comparison, aircraft from the USS Harry S. Truman dropped 1,118 smaller bombs in Iraq and Syria from late December 2015 to mid-April 2016 as part of the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve. A general purpose 1,000-pound MK-83 costs about $12,000.

pulse