On Thanksgiving eve, U.S. President Donald Trump slipped out of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and quietly boarded the Air Force One. The presidential jet carried only his top aides and a dozen selected journalists as it headed to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, located north of capital Kabul, under the cover of darkness. 

In a White House known for notorious leaks due to Trump's casual approach to security measures, the trip raised eye brows for its unusual secrecy involving a decoy plane, a cover story and pre-wrote tweets to mislead the public on the president's whereabouts.

During the visit, which lasted a total of three and a half hours, Trump served Thanksgiving dinner to U.S. troops and met with President Ashraf Ghani to reopen negotiations with the Taliban.

On Thursday, a group of reporters were picked up from the roof of a parking garage near Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington. They had been told ahead of time that Trump would be traveling incognito to an undisclosed location.

Once inside the base, all smart phones and any devices that could send a signal were confiscated and not returned until at least two hours after Trump's arrival at Bagram, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan.

As Trump headed to Washington, the presidential jet that flown Trump to Florida a day earlier remained parked at Palm Beach International Airport, allowing travelers to identify the modified 747 with its distinctive features. 

That was a decoy, according to Politico. Secretly, a twin plane, also used as Air Force One, was hidden inside a hangar at Joint Base Andrews – instead of being lit up on the tarmac as usual – allowing the president to hop on the flight without the public catching on. He departed just after 10 p.m. for the nonstop flight to Bagram.

Throughout the 13-hour flight, nobody on board Air Force One had access to their phones, including White House staff, Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said. The cabin lights were mostly switched off and window blinds stayed shut.

"It is a dangerous area and he wants to support the troops," Grisham told a small group of correspondents aboard Air Force One on Wednesday evening as she explained why the White House had concealed Trump's true movements.

Last Christmas, en route to a troop visit in Iraq, Air Force One was identified above England by a plane spotter who tweeted a photo of its distinctive turquoise livery, sparking a social media storm. Many speculated then that Trump was on his way to a war zone, pointing to his unusually quiet Twitter account, which had sent dozens of tweets the day before.

This time, Grisham said the White House made arrangements to ensure continuity in the president's Twitter account, which posted unremarkable happy Thanksgiving tweets as he was in the air. 

Trump had long been criticized of having arrived at the White House for two years without visiting troops stationed overseas. 

"We just had a nice Thanksgiving dinner," Trump said amid chants of "U-S-A" during his speech at the Bagram base.

"I thought I was going to be doing it someplace else."

(With inputs from agencies)