A U.S. drone strike last week in Pakistan killed a senior al-Qaida planner who played an important role in the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers in Khost, Afghanistan in December. The target of the missile strike was identified as Hussein al-Yemeni.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reported the following for the network's newscast:

According to a U.S. counterterrorism official, al-Yemeni was killed last week in a missile strike in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

The U.S. official says al-Yemeni was "an up-and-comer in the terrorist world" and that he specialized in bombs and suicide operations.

The attack last December on a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan killed seven agency employees.

The U.S. official says al-Yemeni's death would mark "the latest victory in a systematic campaign that has pounded al-Qaida."

That remark squares with comments by CIA director Leon Panetta. In an interview with the Washington Post, Panetta says aggressive CIA actions are crippling al-Qaida.

But Panetta told the Post the terror network continues to look for ways to kill Americans.