India says Pakistan risks becoming 'failed state:' report

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India has said neighbouring Pakistan could become a "failed state", with doubts emerging about who is in control of the country, a report said Saturday.

The government also warned no part of the world would be safe from what Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee called the "flames being ignited there," the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.

The government's assessment came from Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram and Mukherjee at two separate events on Friday.

"It (Pakistan) is not a failed state, but it's threatening to become one," Chidambaram told a seminar in India's financial hub Mumbai.

"A great concern is weighing on our our minds. In Pakistan, with regret, I would say we don't know who is in control there," he said.

"Whether it is the army or the president or the government... We are in a difficult situation (as Pakistan's neighbours)."

His statements come after a brazen commando attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team earlier in the week in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, near the Indian border.

Eight Pakistanis were killed and seven Sri Lankan players and an assistant coach, as well as a Pakistani umpire, were wounded when they were ambushed by gunmen firing automatic weapons, grenades and a rocket launcher.

The attack has subjected nuclear-armed Pakistan, teetering on political and economic crisis, to mounting international concern about its ability to combat Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-linked militants holed up in its tribal areas.

New Delhi has blamed the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the Mumbai attacks last November in which 165 people died and has said Pakistan must step up efforts to clamp down on extremist activity on its soil.

Lashkar has denied involvement in the carnage in Mumbai.

Chidambaram told Pakistan it must fully dismantle "the terror infrastructure" in the country, saying large swathes of Pakistan were under Taliban control.

Mukherjee meanwhile appealed to the world community to ensure the threat emanating from Pakistan was "eliminated on an urgent basis."

"Otherwise, no part of the world will remain immune to the flames being ignited there," Mukherjee told a conference in New Delhi on Friday.