U.S. to try new cave bomb in Afghanistan

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has developed a new bomb to attack terrorist caves and tunnels: A weapon that forces a bone-crushing blast throughout the complex without destroying the entrance.

"It’s something that we clearly have a need for in Afghanistan, and they’re on their way over there," Pentagon official Pete Aldridge told reporters Friday.

Military researchers rushed the new "thermobaric" bomb, called the BLU-118b, to completion after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and it was tested in Nevada just last week, said Air Force spokesman Capt. Joe Della Vedova. The military was developing the weapon to use against bunkers and other buildings.

It works by creating a cloud of explosive particles that blow up with a force stronger and longer-lasting than one created by conventional explosives.

Thermobaric weapons work on the same principle that causes blasts in grain elevators and other dusty places. Clouds of fine particles are highly explosive, and such explosions produce shock waves that can be directed and amplified in enclosed spaces such as buildings, caves or tunnels.

While the shock wave is powerful, it does not collapse a cave or tunnel, but rather reverberates throughout the entire tunnel complex.

"The big advantage of it is that it would enable you to destroy what is in the tunnel without collapsing the tunnel mouth," said military analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. "In other words, you could kill people in tunnels, and also be able to figure out who you’ve killed."

That could prove to be a big advantage in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, since military officials are eager to determine which leaders of the Islamic militia and terrorist network have been killed by U.S. airstrikes. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week that Osama bin Laden could be buried in the rubble of a bombed tunnel, for example.

The United States already had a similar type of weapon, called a fuel-air explosive. That weapon is detonated a mist of liquid fuel, rather than the cloud of solid explosives used in the new version.