Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri, a key suspect in the Mumbai attacks, was among nine militants killed in a US drone strike.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper quoting BBC Urdu service said the US drones targeted a location 20 km from Wana, one of the main towns in South Waziristan late last night.

The BBC based its reports on residents of South Waziristan tribal region. The local residents said Kashmiri was among the nine militants killed in drone strike.

The US drones targeted a location 20 km from Wana, one of the main towns in South Waziristan.

A drone fired two missiles at the spot and two more missiles were fired after a short interval, local residents were quoted as saying by BBC Urdu.

The local residents said Kashmiri was among the nine militants killed in the drone strike.

A government official in Peshawar confirmed the drone strike but there was no confirmation on Kashmiri’s death.

Other officials said all the dead militants were Punjabi Taliban.

The report said Kashmiri came to Wana from the Khyber tribal region 10 days ago and moved to the area where the drone strike was carried out last night.

Asked by media persons in Multan about reports of Kashmiri’s death in the drone strike, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said, “I do not have any information now.”

Kashmiri, the head of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, has been linked to several major terror attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai strikes and the recent Taliban raid on the PNS Mehran naval airbase in Karachi.

This is not the first that there have been reports of Kashmiri’s death in a drone strike.

He was reported killed in an attack by a US spy plane in North Waziristan in September 2009 but re-emerged a month later to give an interview to Syed Saleem Shahzad, the journalist who was recently abducted and murdered.