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WATCH: 36 Islamic State fighters killed by massive bomb

A general view of Achin district, in Jalalabad, after U.S. forces dropped Thursday the bomb, Afghanistan, Friday, April 14, 2017. U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Thursday struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan with "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear weapon every used in combat by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
A general view of Achin district, in Jalalabad, after U.S. forces dropped Thursday the bomb, Afghanistan, Friday, April 14, 2017. U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Thursday struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan with "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear weapon every used in combat by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) A general view of Achin district, in Jalalabad, after U.S. forces dropped Thursday the bomb, Afghanistan, Friday, April 14, 2017. U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Thursday struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan with "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear weapon every used in combat by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

By Associated Press 3 min read

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The attack on a tunnel complex in remote eastern Afghanistan with the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S. military left 36 Islamic State group fighters dead and no civilian casualties, Afghanistan officials said Friday.

The attack was carried out in a remote mountainous area of Nangarhar province near the Pakistan border where there had been heavy fighting in recent weeks between Afghan forces and IS militants. The Ministry of Defense said in a statement that several IS caves and ammunition caches were destroyed by the giant bomb, which terrified villagers on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with its “earsplitting blast.”

“This is the right weapon for the right target,” said U.S. Gen. John W. Nicholson, NATO commander in Afghanistan, at a news conference.

The bomb, known officially as a GBU-43B, or massive ordnance air blast weapon, unleashes 11 tons of explosives.

Gen. Daulat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, said the death toll of IS fighters could rise. He said the bombing was necessary because the tunnel complex was extremely hard to penetrate, with some as deep as 40 meters (43 yards).