Dan Smock
Dan Smock loved the view from the balcony of the house in Kabul he shared with fellow American aid workers. It looked out over the rooftops of the Afghan capital, with stunning snowcapped mountains in the distance. Smock liked it so much that he says he “hung out on that balcony a lot” during his time in Afghanistan.
Someone else who came to appreciate that same view was 9/11 plotter and al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was taking the air on the same balcony early Sunday morning when he was killed in an American drone strike.
Osama bin Laden’s successor is believed to have been shredded by a special blade-wielding Hellfire missile while alone on his balcony. His fateful daily habit of reading on the scenic terrace of what he presumed to be his safe house was ultimately used to establish a “pattern of life” in the operation which killed him, according to reports.