The report quote one official saying that, So many senior members of the organisation have been killed in an intense campaign of air strikes involving missiles launched from unmanned drones that "only a handful of the key players" remain alive.

Fearing that North Africa might become the new “theatre of jihad” soon, some well-informed sources told The Guardian that “two relatively senior al Qaeda figures have already made their way to Libya, with others intercepted en route”.

One source said, “A group of very experienced figures from North Africa left camps in Afghanistan’s [north-eastern] Kunar province where they have been based for several years and travelled back across the Middle East… Some got stopped but a few got through.”

A British official, while commenting on the presence of al Qaeda leaders in West Asia, told the newspaper, “I think they are really very much weakened… You can’t say they don’t pose a threat – they do – but it’s a much lesser one.”

British and US intelligence sources told the The Guardian that there are an estimated 100 “al Qaeda or al Qaeda-affiliated” militants in Afghanistan, of whom only “a handful” were seen to pose a threat internationally to the UK or other western nations.