The men are believed to be Kenyan national Usama al-Kini, described as Al-Qaeda's chief of operations in Pakistan, and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"There is every reason to believe that these two top terrorist figures are dead," said the source, adding that the pair was killed "within the last week."

Officials believe al-Kini was behind the September 2008 truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel that killed 60 people, and is linked to a failed assassination attempt on late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The counterintelligence source did not say how the men died, but according to the Washington Post, which first broke the story, the Al-Qaeda operatives were killed in a January 1 missile attack in northern Pakistan.

Local security officials told AFP on January 1 that an unmanned CIA aircraft had fired three missiles in the Karikot area of South Waziristan, killing five suspected militants.

The New Years strike occurred near Karikot in South Waziristan, the Post reported.

The two men were both born in Kenya, according to the State Department's Rewards for Justice website. Al-Kini, born Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam in Mombasa, was 32. Swedan's birth date is given on the website as either April 1960 or 1969.

The pair died after being struck with 45 kilo (100-pound) Hellfire missiles fired from a pilotless Predator drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Post reported.

The CIA declined to comment on the strikes, but an official told the Post that the men were killed in a strike on a building being used for explosives training.

"They died preparing new acts of terror," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The two men are also on the FBI's most wanted list for links with the August 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa.

Both have been indicted in connection to the bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi for "murder of US nationals outside the United States; conspiracy to murder US nationals outside the United States; and attack on a federal facility resulting in death," according to rewardsforjustice.net.

The State Department website maintains lists of current reward offers for wanted persons designated as terrorists by the US government.

The autonomous tribal area of northwest Pakistan has been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels sought refuge in the region after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Pakistan has repeatedly protested to the United States that the drone strikes violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the 160 million people of the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.

President Asif Ali Zardari has promised zero tolerance for such violations, but some officials say there is a tacit understanding between the US and Pakistani militaries to allow such action.

A US drone attack in November killed Rashid Rauf, the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot, as well as an Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative, security officials have said.

More than two dozen similar strikes have been carried out since August 2008, killing more than 200 people, most of them militants.

Since its founding in 1984 Rewards for Justice program has paid out 77 million dollars to over 50 individuals for "information that prevented international terrorist attacks or helped bring to justice those involved in prior acts," according to the website.

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