Mine-clearing personnel at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, found an 1,100-pound Russian penetrating bomb containing 167 pounds of explosives about 200 feet from the base’s runway. Normally, an explosive ordnance disposal team would blow unexploded ordnance in place, but, in this case, its proximity to the runway presented a problem. EOD airmen dug a trench and built up a mound of dirt around the big bomb, then placed a C-4 high-explosives charge to blow it up. Officials say the weapon was left over from the Afghan-Soviet Union war of the 1980s.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
