"People are scared" about the growth of extremism, he told a Washington gathering last week. "It will be a period of mayhem and crisis."
Despite pressure from Washington, the new Pakistani government has pursued peace talks with tribal leaders in the Federally Administered Tribal Area and North West Frontier province where al-Qaida and other extremists established sanctuaries after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
But apart from an occasional strike by an armed Predator drone against terrorists in the tribal area, the United States has refrained from intervening.
"The situation is hard to follow and not easy to influence," said a senior State Department official. "Our approval ratings are steadily declining."
He noted a recent poll by Pakistan's respected Herald magazine, in which 75 percent of the respondents said it was wrong for Pakistan to align itself with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"That's three-quarters of Pakistani society, not just the uneducated rabble or Islamists. These are people who normally looked at the United States in a very favorable light. So, we are hurting in Pakistan," said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified so he could speak candidly.
Analysts say that the United States bears some responsibility for allowing extremism to fester in Pakistan's border regions.
"The threat of terrorism and extremism is a direct result of the lackadaisical attitude of the United States" after the war in Afghanistan, when Washington's attention turned to the invasion of Iraq, Rashid said.
Extremist sanctuaries became well-established in Pakistan's border regions during the holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when insurgents were heavily armed and bankrolled by the CIA through Pakistan's army and intelligence services.
In a region with 6,000 madrassas, or Islamic schools, and about 600,000 students, there is a rich recruiting base for al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are seeking to extend their influence across Pakistan, said Thomas Johnson, a research professor and Pashtun scholar at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
In April, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that the Bush administration had failed to develop a comprehensive plan to eradicate the terrorist threat and close the havens in Pakistan's border regions.
