
Despite a $25 million US bounty on his head, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri apparently felt comfortable enough with the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan to move into a home in Kabul where he would regularly appear out in the open, on his balcony.
But the US government had not given up its pursuit of one of the planners of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the heir to Osama bin Laden.