‘Hell itself’: Aleppo reels from alleged use of bunker-buster bombs

The roar of the explosion was unlike anything Abdulkafi al-Hamdo had heard before. Stones from a kilometre away fell in front of the home where the teacher had taken shelter with his wife and seven-month-old daughter.

 

Arriving at the scene in the early afternoon on Friday, he took in the destruction of the Mashhad neighbourhood of eastern Aleppo, and the crater left following the bomb. It was the first time, the opposition claimed, that they had documented the use of bunker buster bombs in Syria’s second city.

 

Known in Arabic as al-qanabil al-irtijajiya, “the bombs that shake”, bunker busters are designed to hit targets deep underground. The Russian models can weigh more than a tonne and penetrate two metres into reinforced concrete.

 

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