Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of a rapidly expanding U.S.-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa, U.S. military officials said.
The Air Force invested millions of dollars to upgrade an airfield in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, where it has built a small annex to house a fleet of drones. The Reapers began flying missions earlier this year over neighboring Somalia, targeting al-Shabab, an Islamist group connected to al-Qaeda.
Some bases in the region also have been used to carry out operations against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
