Washington, July 4 : A US daily has warned that if the Pakistani Taliban can dare infest Peshawar, though temporarily, there is reason to worry about extremist elements taking control over Pakistan thereby affecting the long-term stability of the nuclear-armed state.

It also said that the most immediate danger US was facing was from the sanctuary that Al Qaeda enjoys in the tribal areas of Pakistan, especially in the wake of media reports that nearly 2000 Qaeda recruits are being trained in these sanctuaries.

The action taken in the Khyber Agency implies that the PPP-led coalition government is losing ground to extremists and its efforts to negotiate a truce agreement with Pakistani Taliban groups have failed to rein in, or even constrain, the various jihadist bands in the region, said an editorial published in Boston Globe.

It further said: “If Peshawar, a major city, can be infested even temporarily by the Pakistani Taliban, there is reason to worry about the long-term stability of this nuclear-armed state, according to the newspaper. The most immediate danger for Americans comes from the sanctuary that Al Qaeda enjoys in the tribal areas of Pakistan. US intelligence officials estimate there are now about 2,000 recruits being trained at small Al Qaeda camps located in the inaccessible mountains and valleys of Waziristan. If there is to be another terrorist attack on America on the order of September 11, it is likely to originate from those camps, it is feared.”

The editorial added that of the two “nasty realities” the next American President will need to confront one is that new government Pakistan seems unable to overcome, or even resist, the swelling power of its Islamist militias.

Al Qaeda has been able to recreate a new version of the safe haven it lost when US forces toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, it said.

The second nasty reality, it said, is that the Bush administration has been losing its proclaimed war on terrorism and it will be up to the next president to develop a coherent long-term strategy for coping with Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups.

“[US President] Bush’s successor will need to reconsider the nature of the terrorist threat, starting with an understanding that the jihadist movement is aimed primarily at overthrowing regimes in the Muslim world which it deems insufficiently Islamic. In this internal war within the world of Islam, America has been targeted as the ‘far power’ propping up governments such as those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. The next US administration will need to lower the American profile in this war. It will have to cooperate more extensively, and quietly, with intelligence services and law enforcement agencies in the Arab world, central Asia, and Europe,” writes the Boston-based daily. (ANI)