New Delhi: Pakistan could collapse within a few months, a consultant to US President Barack Obama has warned.
Former Australian army officer David Kilcullen, who was General David Petraeus' senior counter-insurgency strategist and now a consultant to the Obama Administration, says Pakistan is the biggest concern and its collapse will be a blow to America's war on terror and the al-Qaeda would end up running what he calls 'Talibanistan'.
"We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now. You just can't say that you're not going to worry about al-Qaeda taking control of Pakistan and its nukes... the headquarters of the al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country the government does not control. Afghanistan... easy to understand, difficult to execute. But in Pakistan, it is very difficult to understand and it's extremely difficult for us to generate any leverage, because Pakistan does not want our help," Kilcullen told the Sydney Morning Herald.
When Obama unveiled his new Af-Pak policy in Washington last month, he warned that the terrorist group was already rooted in Pakistan, plotting more attacks on the US.
The worry in Washington has been that Pakistan's missiles will fall into al-Qaeda's control.
Kilcullen's warning comes at a time when the US is struggling to redeploy more forces to stabilise the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
However, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi claimed Kilcullen's warning would not come true. Qureshi said there was trouble only in a few pockets of the country.
"I am saying we have to keep things in the correct perspective. Yes, we are concerned, yes there is a challenge but Pakistan is not collapsing. Pakistan is not a few pockets. Pakistan is a strong, vibrant country. The people of Pakistan will defend Pakistan," said Qureshi.
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