A senior figure in the al-Qaeda terrorist network has been killed in Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan, a media report said, dpa reported.
An unnamed US official said Mustafa Abu al-Yazid was killed in a drone airstrike last week, the US broadcaster MSNBC reported late Monday.
A statement purporting to come from the terrorist group appeared on Islamist websites confirming the death but gave no details of the circumstances.
"In terms of counterterrorism, this would be a big victory," another US official told MSNBC.
The 56-year-old Egyptian-born al-Yazid was the number three man in al-Qaeda, working as its financial director and running operations in Afghanistan, terrorism experts said.
He transferred thousands of dollars to the leader of the hijackers that carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Mohammed Atta, just before those attacks.
He also helped found the al-Qaeda terrorist network in 1988.
Al-Yazid had a long history of involvement in Islamist terrorism and served three years in jail for links to the group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981.