U. S. officials said on Wednesday that a senior al-Qaida commander was killed in Pakistan last week in a strike by an unmanned drone.

The New York Times have reported that the al-Qaida figure had played a part in planning a December attack that led to the deaths of CIA operatives at a base in Afghanistan. He was killed on March 8 in one of a series of strikes targeting suspects in the December attack, in which seven Americans and a Jordanian intelligence official were killed.

The Times, citing a U. N. counter-terrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said al-Qaida official Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Miram Shah, North Waziristan.

Yemeni was an al-Qaida "planner and facilitator." A U. S. official said Yemeni was a "conduit in Pakistan for funds, messages and recruits, but his real specialty was bombs and suicide operations," the U. N. official said.

CIA Director Leon Panetta has also told The Washington Post that attacks in Pakistan have driven Osama bin Laden and other leaders underground and reduced al-Qaida's ability to plan attacks. (With Inputs from Agencies)