Senior al-Qaeda figure killed in drone strike

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD: A militant who acted as a senior operations organiser for al-Qaeda was targeted and killed in one of two US drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a US official said. The US and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a US commando team.

They said he was targeted in a strike by a US-operated drone on January 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistanís tribal areas and are a key weapon in US President Barack Obamaís counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which US officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation. Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the US official said he was.