The names of the 13 US service members killed in Kabul on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, were scrawled on a GBU-31 JDAM bomb in a picture circulated on social media this weekend. Picture from Facebook.
No operational information was provided, including the airframe.
Opinions about the aircraft pictured varied among former Air Force munitions troops contacted by Coffee or Die Magazine and on social media, though most agreed it was the interior of a B-1 or B-52, both of which often carry the munitions and have participated in combat operations widely in Afghanistan.
The bomb is almost certainly not one used in drone strikes over the weekend that targeted ISIS-K planners believed to be responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing, nor a second one Saturday, Aug. 28, that targeted a suicide vehicle that officials say was headed toward the airport. US officials said both of those strikes were carried out by drones, which do not carry large bombs internally, and the strike on the planners used an AGM-114 Hellfire missile.
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Matt White is a former senior editor for Coffee or Die Magazine. He was a pararescueman in the Air Force and the Alaska Air National Guard for eight years and has more than a decade of experience in daily and magazine journalism.
