Pakistan, which recently witnessed a series of suicide attacks by pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, is the most dangerous country in the world, and has become a safe haven for terrorists, a media report says."Unlike countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan has everything Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas and security services that don't always do what they're supposed to do," says Newsweek in an investigative report being published in its upcoming issue.
Then there's the country's large and growing nuclear programme, it adds ominously. The conventional story about Pakistan, it says, has been that it is an unstable nuclear power, with distant tribal areas in terrorist hands.
"What is new, and more frightening, is the extent to which Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements have now turned much of the country, including some cities, into a base that gives militants more room to maneuver, both in Pakistan and beyond," it adds.
Taliban militants, the magazine reports, now "pretty much come and go" as they please inside Pakistan. Their sick and injured get patched up in private hospitals there.
"Until I return to fight, I'll feel safe and relaxed here," Abdul Majadd, a Taliban commander who was badly wounded this summer during a fire fight against British troops in Afghanistan, told Newsweek after he was evacuated to Karachi for emergency care.
Guns and supplies are readily available, and in winter, when fighting dies down in Afghanistan, thousands retire to the country's thriving madrassas to study the Koran, it says.