As the sun was rising in Kabul on Sunday, two Hellfire missiles fired by a US drone ended Ayman al-Zawahiri's decade-long reign as the leader of al-Qaeda. The seeds of the audacious counterterrorism operation had been planted over many months.
US officials had built a scale model of the safe house where Zawahiri had been located, and brought it into the White House Situation Room to show President Joe Biden. They knew Zawahiri was partial to sitting on the home's balcony.
