Senior Al-Qaeda Leader Apparently Killed In Pakistan

Reports from Washington say a U.S. missile strike in northwestern Pakistan last week appears to have killed a key Al-Qaeda leader.

Wire services quoting an anonymous senior U.S. counterterrorism official say the dead man evidently is Hussein al-Yemeni, who is believed to have played a key role in the bombing of a CIA post in Afghanistan in December.

The official says the missile strike took place in Miran Shah, the main town in Pakistan's province of North Waziristan.

Al-Yemeni is considered an important Al-Qaeda planner and explosives expert who had established contacts with militant groups ranging from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban.

In the December attack, a Jordanian suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees -- four officers and three contracted security guards -- and a Jordanian intelligence officer.

compiled from agency reports