The US Air Force said it dropped a 21,000-pound bomb on a range in northwest Florida today in a successful first live test of a powerful new weapon nicknamed the "mother of all bombs."
Defence officials suggested the test was a message to Iraq ahead of a possible war about the might of the US military.
"Obviously, anything we have in the arsenal, anything that's in almost any stage of development, could be used [against Iraq]", said Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A C-131 Samaritan aircraft dropped the bomb on a test range at Eglin Air Force Base spokeswoman, Senior Airman Nicholasa Brown, said.
The explosion sounded "just like thunder," Senior Airman Brown said.
The bomb packs 40 per cent more power than the US's current most powerful non-nuclear bomb, the 15,000-pound Daisy Cutter, which was used to pound the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The MOAB is guided by global positioning satellites and spreads a flammable mist over the target then ignites it, producing a highly destructive blast.
The acronym stands for "Massive Ordnance Air Burst" but military officials have nicknamed it the "Mother Of All Bombs."
