A US-based intelligence think-tank has projected that the South Asian state can very well turn into a "failed country" soon.
With Pakistan dithering over the global call to act against terror groups involved in the Mumbai terror strikes, a US-based intelligence think-tank has projected that the South Asian state can very well turn into a "failed country" soon.
"Pakistan already is a country in crisis, and in some ways it is hard to imagine it getting much worse. But if Pakistan continues to destabilise, it could very well turn into a failed country... albeit a failed country with a nuclear arsenal," security think-tank Stratfor said in its annual forecast on 'Jihadism'.
The report, titled 'Jihadism in 2009: The trends continue' and released in January, said Pakistan was once again the critical location for the Jihadists.
"Given the number of plots linked to Pakistan in recent years, including the November 26 Mumbai attacks and almost every significant plot since 9/11, all eyes will be watching Pakistan carefully," it said.
Slamming Pakistan for being home to al Qaeda's core leadership as it pursues its ideological war, the think-tank said the South Asian nation was also home to a number of Jihadist groups - from the Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in the northwest to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in the northeast, and several others.
Stating that the coming year might prove to be pivotal in the global efforts against the Jihadists in Pakistan, the Sratfor forecast noted that before it became a failed state, here were a number of precursor stages it probably would pass through.
"The most immediate stage would entail the fall of most of the North-West Frontier Province to the Jihadists, something that could happen this year," the report noted.
"This type of anarchy in Pakistan could give the Jihadists an opportunity to exert control in a way similar to what they had done in places like Afghanistan and Somalia (and already in the Pakistani badlands along the Afghan border.)"
The most optimist assessment of the report was that if Pakistan re-establishes control over its territory and the ISI, its rogue intelligence agency, and began cooperating with the US and nations fighting the Jihadists, the development could deal a terrible blow to the terror groups' aspirations on both the physical and ideological battlefields.
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