NICOSIA, Jan 31: Abu Laith Al Libi, a leading Al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan, has been killed, an Islamist website monitored by the US-based service SITE said on Thursday.

In Washington, an official said there were “very strong indications” that Libi had been killed.

The reports follow a missile strike late on Monday in North Waziristan that was reported to have killed more than 10 militants.

Al-Ekhlaas, an Al Qaeda-affiliated forum, announced the death of Libi, who has appeared in the past in Al Qaeda videos, SITE said, referring to media reports that he had been killed in a US air strike.

“As the banner was posted on Ekhlaas by a webmaster of the forum, it seems as if the announcement of his death has been confirmed to the forum administrators,” SITE said.

In Afghanistan, Nato-led forces said they had no information on whether the Libyan militant had been killed.

And in Islamabad, Brig Javed Cheema, an interior ministry spokesman, said: “We have no information of his killing.”

The official in Washington said that “taking down any of these guys can have both an operational and symbolic impact. The pressure is on. They got to know it. Nobody’s giving up on this fight.”

Security officials in Islamabad said earlier on Thursday that a clutch of Al Qaeda militants _ seven Arabs and six Central Asians _ were killed when a suspected US missile hit their hideout, a house in North Waziristan, late on Monday.

Residents had reported that a pilotless drone aircraft of the type operated by US-led forces based in Afghanistan was seen flying over Mir Ali, a town near the Waziristan area targeted in Monday’s strike.

A US Predator drone targeted Al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Jan 2006, killing several militants but missing him.

A long-time jihadist, Libi was a leader of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, opposed to the overthrow of Colonel Moamer Qadhafi. He was named in Al Qaeda videos as a senior field commander in Afghanistan.

Libi was suspected of involvement in a suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside Afghanistan’s Bagram air base during a visit by US Vice-President Dick Cheney in February of last year.

Last May, Libi appeared in a video posted on the internet to say that Al Qaeda was prepared to consider exchanges of prisoners with western nations, and he singled out a radical cleric under arrest in Britain.

Last June, Libi was the apparent target of a US rocket attack on a compound in Afghanistan’s Paktia province in which seven children were killed.—AFP