ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan on Saturday denied a media report that an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft killed a senior Al Qaeda (search) operative near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border earlier this week.
ABC News, quoting unidentified intelligence sources, reported Friday that senior Al Qaeda operative Haitham al-Yemeni (search) was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft.
But Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Amhed told The Associated Press that, "No such incident took place near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border."
A U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, Lt. Cindy Moore, said forces from the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan were not involved in such an incident, but she couldn't say whether it had taken place.
The CIA has declined to comment on the report.
Pakistan (search), a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, earlier this month arrested Abu Faraj al-libbi (search), reputed to be Al Qaeda's No. 3 leader.
ABC News said that after the capture of al-Libbi, officials decided to strike at al-Yemeni rather than risk that he would go into hiding.
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