Alleged al Qaeda operative believed dead

Islamabad, Pakistan - A suspected al Qaeda member believed to have played a key role in a deadly December attack on CIA employees in Afghanistan appears to have been killed, a U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN Wednesday.

Hussein al-Yemeni was the apparent victim of a strike last week in the Miran Shah area of Pakistan, said the official, who called al-Yemeni "a vicious and dangerous figure who saw himself as an up-and-comer in the terrorist world."