WASHINGTON, Feb 8: The US and Pakistani authorities appear reluctant to confirm that a top Al Qaeda operative was among the 12 insurgents killed in North Waziristan last week.

Media reports quoting US officials had claimed earlier that Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in a missile attack, carried out by a US drone, at a militants’ hideout in the remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

An Islamist website, linked to Al Qaeda, has confirmed Al Libi’s death saying that a dozen people, including seven Arabs, also died in the attack. A similar website reported on Wednesday that Al Qaeda leaders had vowed revenge for the killing of one of their top field commanders.

Al Libi had survived a similar attack last June when a missile fired by another US drone missed him. He was a senior Al Qaeda figure who allegedly tried to assassinate Vice-President Cheney last year in Afghanistan. The Americans had announced a $200,000 bounty on his head.

The first person to express doubts about Al Libi’s death was US Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte who, in an interview with a Washington think-tank refused to confirm the reports about his death.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” he said. “If this is true —that this high-level Al Qaeda operative has been put out of commission — that’s probably an important development and degrades Al Qaeda’s capabilities,” he said.

Then on Thursday afternoon Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, indicated at a briefing at the embassy that authorities had not yet been able to confirm if Al Libi was among those killed in the raid.

Mr Negroponte had also refused to say whether it were Pakistani or US troops who killed Al Libi but Ambassador Durrani told the briefing that Pakistani troops had conducted the raid that killed the 12 insurgents.

“It was an operation planned and executed by Pakistani troops,” said Mr Durrani.