ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan on Saturday denied a media report that an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft killed a senior al Qaeda operative near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border earlier this week.

ABC News, quoting unidentified intelligence sources, reported Friday that senior al Qaeda operative Haitham al-Yemeni was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft.

But Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Amhed told The Associated Press that, "No such incident took place near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border."

A U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, Lt. Cindy Moore, said forces from the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan were not involved in such an incident, but she couldn't say whether it had taken place.

The CIA has declined to comment on the report.

Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, earlier this month arrested Abu Faraj al-libbi, reputed to be al Qaeda's No. 3 leader.

ABC News said that after the capture of al-Libbi, officials decided to strike at al-Yemeni rather than risk that he would go into hiding.