IRAF\u2019s report on the use of an American bomb in Pakistan\u2019s attack on Kunar<\/p>\n
Following the Pakistani army\u2019s airstrike two nights ago on parts of Kunar province, an examination of the remains of the munitions indicates that the bomb used was an MK-82, manufactured by the US company Lockheed Martin. The report highlights the possible role of American equipment in an attack that also affected civilians.<\/p>\n
IRAF, citing Moradi, reported that the number inscribed on one of the remaining fragments, \u201c147214,\u201d is directly attributed to Lockheed Martin. According to him, the company is one of the largest weapons producers in the United States and Saudi Arabia is among its main customers.<\/p>\n
Referring to Saudi Arabia\u2019s increased arms purchases from the US after the start of the Yemen war, Moradi said the $143 billion deal between Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman was also part of this same trend. He stressed that the MK-82 bomb has had wider use for Saudi Arabia among these purchases because it is used in mountainous and rural areas.<\/p>\n
Citing a recent BBC report based on CNN, he added that Saudi Arabia had also used this type of bomb in 2018, an attack that led to the deaths of 40 Yemeni children. According to Moradi, Barack Obama had suspended the sale of these weapons to Saudi Arabia, but Donald Trump lifted the restriction in the early months of his time in the White House, and the US State Department, under Rex Tillerson, again approved their sale.<\/p>\n
Moradi also said that although US-Pakistan arms cooperation has been suspended over the past 10 years, it cannot be stated with certainty that this bomb was delivered directly from the US to Pakistan. However, pointing to Saudi Arabia\u2019s large stockpiles of these munitions and two defence agreements between Riyadh and Islamabad in 2025 and 2026, he suggested that the bomb may have reached Pakistan via Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Taliban officials have also reacted to Pakistan\u2019s attacks. Saeed Khosti, head of the jihadist records and documents registration department at the Taliban-run Ministry of Information and Culture, posted an image of one of the victims on the social media platform X, expressing doubt about the target and the manner in which the strike was carried out, and criticised Pakistani officials, referring to the US-made GBU-12 guided bomb.<\/p>\n
Kunar province, in eastern Afghanistan and bordering Pakistan, has in recent years repeatedly witnessed border incidents and airstrikes. The MK-82 is a well-known US-made munition that has also been reported as used in various conflicts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A report says Pakistan used a US-made MK-82 bomb in an airstrike on Afghanistan’s Kunar province, raising questions over its origin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}