Attacking the subterranean installation, entombed tens of meters deep within solid mountain rock, demanded specialized ordnance that the US Air Force lacked until slightly more than ten years ago. Penetrating the reinforced complex necessitated GBU-57A/B MOP bombs, precision-guided munitions weighing 30,000 pounds, engineered to engage fortified structures buried far below ground level.

The MOP emerged from an extensive lineage of "bunker-penetrating" weapons developed by American forces throughout the Cold War era. These constitute precision armaments featuring independent guidance systems, incorporating multiple operational phases enabling penetration through concrete barriers, soil, and stone.

The MOP's defining characteristic centers on the weapon's massive scale. Each individual bomb weighs 30,000 pounds, establishing it as the heaviest munition within the US Air Force inventory. Only one aircraft type currently in active service possesses the capability to transport it with suitable deployment mechanisms – the B-2 "Spirit" bomber, a stealth aircraft developed during Cold War tensions. While B-52 aircraft transported the weapon during experimental phases, they received no operational modifications for combat deployment.

The weapon's development faced significant obstacles, particularly the technical complexity of installing an effective fuse enabling detonation upon target impact. Consequently, during certain testing scenarios, the bomb penetrated through targets while drilling into terrain, detonating only after reaching complete cessation of movement. The resolution to this issue remains classified, though the problem persisted even following the bomb's operational introduction in 2011. Nevertheless, despite technical challenges, the MOP stands as the world's singular weapon system capable of engaging fortified installations at substantial depths below surface level.

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A Syrian military bunker full of ammunition was uncovered on Tuesday by the Defense Ministry's Mine Action Authority on the Golan Heights in northern Israel.

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The bunker was abandoned after Israel captured the region from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.

The bunker was filled with hundreds of items of ammunition, including mortars of different diameters, fuses, pyrotechnical munitions, explosives, bullets for shotguns, and more. Some of the ammunition was strewn about, and others were in their original packaging.

The findings were moved to a secure storage facility where they will be held until they can be safely destroyed.

The bunker was built in Syria's al-Mourtafa outpost at the Gadot Observation Point. The outpost was one of the Syrian army's most fortified on the Golan Heights before the Six-Day War. From high above in the outpost, Syrian soldiers regularly shelled the Israeli communities in the Hula Valley below.

Thousands of mines from that era remain scattered in the surrounding fields of the outpost.

Video: Mine Action Authority/Defense Ministry

Today, the site acts as a memorial site for the IDF's Alexandroni 3rd Brigade that first broke through the Syrian lines.

The Mine Action Authority has been working to clear the area around the bunker of mines to open more parts of the Golan to hikers and tourists.

Operating since 2012, the Mine Action Authority has cleared around 3,700 acres of unnecessary minefields.

Still – while 8,150 acres of known minefields remain in Israel – some 22,200 acres of mined land throughout Israel is reportedly still unknown.

Such land is mostly in open fields on the Golan Heights, the Arava desert in southern Israel, and along Israel's borders.

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Dutch cloud services firm Interxion plans to invest 140 million euros to turn the "Martha Base" bunker – which was built in 1943 to accommodate up to 20 U-boats but was never completed – into a data center for corporate clients. The first part of the restoration is set to be completed by March.

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"It is not our job to restore historical buildings, usually we build from scratch. But this was an opportunity and Marseille is a major telecom, cloud and digital hub between Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia," Interxion France director Fabrice Coquio told reporters.

During the German occupation of France, the bunker was meant to be the main German U-boat base in the Mediterranean, but Allied forces bombed the city in May 1944 and took it back in August that year.

After the war, it was used for storage by the army and customs service, but it had been abandoned in recent years.

Coquio said the port city is France's second data hub after Paris and the tenth-biggest in the world with about a dozen submarine and terrestrial data cables arriving there, and that Interxion needs to be as close as possible to those cables.

Filling an area of 25,000 square meters, the data center will consume 24 megawatts of electricity, the equivalent of a city of 20,000 people, and will have its own back-up diesel generators to protect against blackouts.

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