Agence France-Presse | The United States military is expanding a secret network of air bases across Africa in order to spy on Al-Qaeda and other militant groups, the Washington Post reported.

The surveillance is carried out by small, unmarked turboprop planes with hidden state-of-the-art sensors that fly thousands of miles (kilometers) between air bases and bush landing strips across the vast continent, it said.

The program, dating back to 2007, underscores the massive expansion of US special forces operations in recent years and the steady militarization of intelligence operations during the decade-long war on Al-Qaeda.