Pakistan will be a "failed" state by 2015 - Report from CIA

I'm sure many of you must've read it but i just found it interesting....

NEW DELHI: Pakistan will be a "failed" state by 2015 as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons, premier US intelligence agencies have said in an assessment report.


Forecasting a "Yugoslavia-like fate" for Pakistan, the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a jointly prepared Global Futures Assessment Report have said "by year 2015 Pakistan would be a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and complete Talibanisation".

"Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction," said the report quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to United Kingdom Wajid Shamsul Hasan in an article in the ' South Asia Tribune '.

Titled 'Will Pakistan Army invade Balochistan as per the NIC-CIA Plan', the former senior diplomat said "in the context of Balochistan, one would like to refer to the 2015 NIC report. It forecast a Yugoslavia-like fate for Pakistan.

"The military operation that has been put in motion there would further distance the Baloch people from rest of the country. That perhaps is the (NIC-CIA) Plan," Hasan said.

"Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government's control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi," the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.

Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, "are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?"

His article comes in the backdrop of growing violence between the Balochis and the Pakistani security forces stationed in the gas-rich province.

The recent moves by the security forces to evict all residents within a 15-km radius of the Pakistan's biggest Sui gas plant and the decision to create a cantonment near it has given a fillip to the anti-Islamabad insurgent activities of Balochi groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army, reports said.

The reports said Pakistan was taking the "most drastic step yet" in its bid to crush a deadly tribal rebellion by forcibly evicting all residents from around 500 dwellings within 15 kilometres of the country's biggest Sui gasfield.

The Army says such a step would prevent further attacks and protect residents from the devastating consequences of a major explosion, the reports said.