( CNN ) While the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq holds the world 's gaze , a simultaneous transformation is getting less attention : the deterioration of al Qaeda . In an audio message released Sunday , al Qaeda confirmed that two of its leaders , known as Ustad Ahmad Farooq and Qari Abdullah Mansur , were killed in CIA drone strikes in January in North Waziristan , near the Afghan-Pakistan border . Farooq 's real name was Raja Mohammad Suleman , al Qaeda said . He was a Pakistani who acted as the group 's liaison to the Pakistan Taliban and was the deputy commander of al Qaeda 's South Asia branch . ( Mansur 's real name was Qari Ubaidullah , a Pakistani who oversaw suicide missions against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan ) . Al Qaeda 's South Asia branch is relatively new , announced with some fanfare back in September by al Qaeda 's top leader , Ayman al-Zawahiri . The creation of the terror group 's South Asia branch was seen by some terrorism analysts as an attempt to steal some of the limelight from ISIS , which is embroiled in a public dispute with al Qaeda for leadership of the global jihad movement . The deaths of the two men continue the decimation of al Qaeda 's bench of leaders . On Monday , in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi , local al Qaeda commander Nurul Hassan was killed in a raid , said Arif Hanif , district inspector general of police . Florida-raised Adnan Shukrijumah , 39 , who was in charge of al Qaeda 's operations to attack the West , was killed in December in a Pakistani military operation . Texas-born Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh , who also played a planning role for al Qaeda 's operations , was arrested in Pakistan last year . The deaths of Ubaidullah and Suleman underline the fact that there are almost no top leaders of al Qaeda left except al-Zawahiri . Both Ubaidullah and Suleman were Pakistani . This is an indicator of how al Qaeda has become a largely Pakistan-focused group , increasingly able to do nothing of any significance outside of Pakistan or Afghanistan . Indeed , al Qaeda has virtually no capacity to carry out attacks in the West . The last successful al Qaeda attack in the West was the London transportation system bombings a decade ago . Al Qaeda is now reduced only to holding American hostages such as 73-year-old aid worker Warren Weinstein , who was kidnapped from his home in the Pakistani city of Lahore on August 13 , 2011 . To be sure , al Qaeda 's Yemen-based affiliate , al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , or AQAP , continues to pose a threat to American aviation . The group has built hard-to-detect bombs , which it has placed on U.S.-bound flights . Luckily , those bombs were faulty or were detected . The group also trained one of the gunmen who attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January , killing 12 , but it 's not clear if AQAP had any direct role in planning this attack . Meanwhile , ISIS continues to attract Western recruits and also inspire `` homegrown '' terrorists in the West , but the core al Qaeda organization that killed almost 3,000 men , women and children on 9/11 is on life support . Al Qaeda 's confirmation of the deaths of Ubaidullah and Suleman is just one of the latest pieces of evidence for this assessment .
al Qaeda confirms that two of its leaders were killed in January drone strikes . Other leaders have been killed or captured recently . The terrorist group 's capacity to carry out attacks in the West has been greatly diminished .