According to Sky News, the Pakistani Taliban's second-in-command Wali-ur-Rehman has been killed in a drone air strike, security officials have said.
The US remotely controlled aircraft attacked the militant commander in the mountainous North Waziristan region, security officials told the Reuters news agency.
Seven people, including the deputy commander, died in the first such attack since Pakistan's May 11 general election in which US drone strikes were a major issue.
"This is a huge blow to militants and a win in the fight against insurgents," one security official told Reuters.
The security officials and Pashtun tribesmen in the northwestern region said the drone fired two missiles at a mud-built house in Chashma village, two miles (3km) east of Miranshah, the region's administrative town.
They said seven people were killed and four wounded.
"Tribesmen started rescue work an hour after the attack and recovered seven bodies," said resident Bashir Dawar. "The bodies were badly damaged and beyond recognition."
A senior Pakistani army official said last year that Rehman had been poised to succeed Hakimullah Mehsud as leader of the Pakistan Taliban.
The Pakistan Taliban is a separate entity to the Afghan Taliban, but is allied to it.
It is officially known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and has launched devastating attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians.
Among the attacks on civilians have been the targeting of health workers vaccinating people against polio.
The drone strike has so far been impossible to verify independently. Foreign journalists must have permission from the military to visit the tribal areas along the Afghan border.
Taliban fighters also often seal off the sites of drone strikes immediately so Pakistani journalists cannot see the victims.
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