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US President Donald Trump boards a different Air Force One after changing plane at Ramstein Air Base, Germany while returning from a surprise Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Afghanistan on November 28, 2019.OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

Trump's visit to Afghanistan was so secret the White House sent generic Thanksgiving tweets from his account to avoid questions about why he didn't post for 13 hours, Business Insider - Business Insider Singapore

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Trump administration staffers sent generic Thanksgiving tweets from President Donald Trump’s Twitter account to avoid suspicion that his account was silent as he made a secret trip to visit US troops in Afghanistan.

There was no forward announcement of the trip which Trump for security reasons made in a blacked-out plane on Thanksgiving eve, with White House staff going to extraordinary lengths to shroud the trip in secrecy.

When Trump made the trip to visit troops in Iraq at Christmas last year, close watchers of the president became suspicious when the usually Twitter obsessed president fell silent for several hours.

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So to avoid suspicion this time White House staffer sent out generic Thanksgiving messages from the president’s account as he made the 13 hour journey to Kabul, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham confirmed to The New York Times.

Trump started Wednesday with a round of golf at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with the White House announcing that he would be spending the evening there.

But soon after Trump instead boarded Air Force One for the 7 p.m. flight to Afghanistan, where US troops have been stationed since 2002.

Even reporters who travelled with the president on the journey were only told the destination two hours before their arrival, reported Politico.

“It’s a dangerous area and he wants to support the troops,” Grisham told Politico, of the president. “He and Mrs. Trump recognize that there’s a lot of people far away from their families during the holidays and we thought it’d be a nice surprise.”

During the trip to Bagram Airbase, Trump served Turkey to US soldiers, met Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, and posed for pictures with service personnel.