The Post, at the request of the Obama administration, refrained from disclosing the location of the secret U.S. military base, but later reneged after it learned that another news outlet intended to publish.

Officials established the base two years ago to intensify the hunt against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen as well as suspected terrorist groups in Somalia.

An official told Fox News that operations launched from the Saudi base "are (the) only new expansion to this plan," describing the process as a "long-term deliberate effort where we used what we could (until) we got the locations we wanted."