The US Central
Intelligence Agency has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned
drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years.
The facility was established to hunt for members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.
A drone flown from there was used in September 2011 to kill
Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was alleged to be AQAP's external
operations chief.
US media have known of its existence since then, but have not reported it.
The US military pulled out virtually all of its troops from
Saudi Arabia in 2003, having stationed between 5,000 and 10,000 troops
in the Gulf kingdom after the 1991 Gulf war. Only personnel from the
United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) officially remain.
'High-value targets'
Construction of the drone base was ordered after a December 2009 cruise missile strike in Yemen,
It was the first strike ordered by the Obama administration,
and ended in disaster, with dozens of civilians, including women and
children killed.
US officials told the newspaper that the first time the CIA used the secret facility was to kill Awlaki.
Since then, the CIA has been "given the mission of hunting
and killing 'high-value targets' in Yemen" - the leaders of AQAP who
government lawyers had determined posed a direct threat to the US - the
officials added.
Drones can reportedly carry out strikes without the permission of Yemen's government.that President Barak Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, a
former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, played a key role in
negotiations with the government in Riyadh over building the drone base.
Saudi Arabia is home to some of Islam's holiest sites and the
deployment of US forces there was seen as a historic betrayal by many
Islamists, notably the late leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden.
It was one of the main reasons given by the Saudi-born dissident to justify violence against the US and its allies.
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