| GEO World | | Pakistan 'most dangerous country in the world': MacKay | Updated at: 0540 PST, Tuesday, May 12, 2009
 OTTAWA: Extremist attacks across nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years have made it "the most dangerous country in the world," Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Monday.
"I'm extremely concerned," MacKay told a press conference. "The instability in Pakistan in my view makes Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world."
Around 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistan security forces are battling extremists in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate militants -- branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.
Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years and around Pakistani 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist militants since 2002.
MacKay said the Taliban's recruiting and rearming in Pakistan is also harming NATO efforts to rout insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, where Canada has deployed some 2,800 troops.
"As long as insurgency is allowed to foster and to incubate inside Pakistan, the problem remains very real, very difficult," he said. |  |
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