Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday he was almost certain a US airstrike which killed 18 Pakistani villagers near the Afghan border last month also killed five al-Qaeda militants.
Musharraf said Osama bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, Ayman al Zawahri, had been due to attend a feast in Damadola village, but he was not there when missiles believed to have been fired by CIA-operated drone aircraft struck three houses.
"Zawahri was invited to the dinner but he did not come," the Pakistani president said at a reception in Peshawar, provincial capital of North West Frontier Province.
"A close relative of Zawahri, subject of a $5 million ransom, was also among those killed," Musharraf, said in his first public comments on possible al-Qaeda casualties.
Earlier accounts of events in Bajaur have largely come from residents and unnamed US and Pakistani intelligence sources.
The heavy civilian death toll led to fiery demonstrations in the Bajaur tribal region and the Pakistan government, a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism, said it lodged a protest with the United States over the attack.
But intelligence sources said the US operation received high level clearance from Islamabad, and Pakistan's own secret service provided the CIA with vital information.
"Investigations have proved that five foreign terrorists, some of whom were very important, were also killed in that strike," Musharraf said.
"I am not 200 per cent sure but am 95 per cent sure that some foreign terrorists were there."
The bodies of the militants were not found, and Pakistani officials say they were removed by local Muslim clerics sympathetic to al-Qaeda's cause.