Report: Senior al Qaeda member assassinated by US fire

A senior al-Qaeda member was assassinated by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border earlier this week, ABC News reported Friday.

Intelligence officials said al-Qaeda operative Haitham al-Yemeni had been tracked for some time with the hope that he would lead them to the network chief, Osama bin Laden, ABC added.

Following the capture of the No. 3 in al-Qaeda, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, in northwest Pakistan earlier this month, American officials decided to strike at al-Yemeni rather than risk that he would go into hiding, the ABC report has indicated.