WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD Jan 20: 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.

US and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad. They said he had been targeted in a strike by a US-operated drone on Jan 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near Miramshah in North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal areas andare a key weapon in US President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-deguerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of Al Qaeda.

Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the US official said he was. One of the sources described Awan as an associate of Al Qaeda's current chief of external operations, whose identity is known to intelligence officials but not to the general public.

'Aslam Awan was a senior Al Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces AlQaeda's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians,' a US official said.

Several previous alleged chiefs of external operations for Al Qaeda have been caught or killed in drone attacks or counter-terrorism operations, the most notorious being Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington DC.

Because their role in arranging operations involves interacting with militants in the field, external operations chiefs of Al Qaeda have found themselves more vulnerable to exposure and counter-attacks by security forces than the movement's most senior leaders, whountil Bin Laden's demise last year appeared to be able to move about the region and issue provocative audio and video messages with near-impunity.

A Pakistani security source based in the country's border region said Awan was the remaining member of an Al Qaeda cell Pakistani authorities had been trying to roll up since 2008. 'We thought he was very close to Ayman al-Zawahiri,' the source said, referring to Al Qaeda's current leader and Bin Laden's long-time deputy, a former Egyptian doctor.

However, a US source said American experts did not believe that Awan was particularly close to Zawahiri.

US officials said they could notconfirm news reports, based on claims from Pakistani sources, that Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the TTP, Pakistan's most potent domestic affiliate of the Taliban movement, was also killed in a June 12 attack.

Pakistani and US sources said that Mehsud was not targeted in the drone strike, and one Pakistani source said: 'He is alive.

Hakimullah is alive.' Rashid Javid adds from Abbottabad: 'Ghaibana' funeral prayer for alleged Al Qaeda operative Aslam Awan was held in his hometown of Abbottabad on Friday.

According to witnesses, local people attended the prayer which was held in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Colony after reports that he had beenkilled in a drone attack in Waziristan.

Sources told this correspondent that Awan belonged to Dalola village and his family later shifted to Abbottabad. His father is a retired bank officer and his two brothers are living in the United Kingdom.

These sources said Awan had also gone to the UK for higher education. He was wanted by intelligence agencies which had interrogated several persons named Aslam in different areas of Abbottabad.

A resident said his father Mohammad Aslam had been interrogated about two years ago.

According to the sources, Awan visited Abbottabad about three years ago and then disappeared.