US OFFICIALS claimed yesterday that 36 Isis militants were killed when they dropped the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat over a mountainous area in Afghanistan.

The attack, using the GBU- 43B bomb which unleashes 11 tons of explosives, was carried out near the Pakistan border where a “tunnel complex” used by Isis’s Afghanistan affiliate is supposedly located.

The US Ministry of Defence said that several Isis caves and ammunition caches had been destroyed by the giant bomb.

“This is the right weapon for the right target,” boasted US General John W Nicholson, who commands Nato forces in Afghanistan, at a news conference.

Afghanistan ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said that no civilians had been hurt during the blast but that the militant death toll would probably rise.

He claimed that the bombing was necessary because the tunnels were extremely hard to penetrate, with some as deep as 40 metres.

“It was a strong position and four times we had operations [attacking the site] and it was not possible to advance,” he said, adding that the road leading to the complex “was full of mines.”

But former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who was installed by the US after its 2001 invasion of the country, complained that Afghanistan shouldn’t be used as a munitions laboratory.

He tweeted: “This is not the war on terror but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons.”