MUNICH, Feb 10: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned that Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the tribal region pose a direct threat to the government.

The presence of the extremists in the tribal region was not just “a nuisance” to Pakistan, but “is potentially a threat to their government,” Mr Gates told an international security conference here on Sunday.

He suggested that the time had come for a Pakistani anti-insurgency sweep on its side of the Afghan border.

Mr Gates warned that the failure of the international force in Afghanistan would increase the security threat to Europe.

He said disputes within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation over troops in Afghanistan risked turning it into a “two tier” alliance of some countries ready to fight and others refusing.

“Instability and conflict abroad have the potential to spread and strike directly at the hearts of our nations,” he said.

“But I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security,” he told the forum, where ministers and top officials from around the world also discussed Kosovo’s looming independence and Russia’s relations with the West.

“For the United States, Sept 11 was a galvanising event -- one that opened the American public’s eyes to dangers from distant lands,” he said.

Mr Gates warned that success for the Taliban would be a huge morale boost for extremism worldwide, and said a reticent European public should remember this.

“The threat posed by violent Islamic extremism is real -- and it is not going away,” he said.

Europeans knew “all too well” about the Madrid bombings that killed 191 people in March 2004 and the attacks in London that left 56 dead in July 2005, he said, but further from the spotlight there had been “multiple smaller attacks” in cities from Glasgow to Istanbul.

“Numerous cells and plots have been disrupted in recent years as well -- many of them seeking large-scale death and destruction.”

He said loosely organised international Muslim extremism was “built on the illusion of success.”

“After all, about the only thing they have accomplished recently is the death of thousands of innocent Muslims while trying to create discord across the Middle East. So far they have failed. What would happen if the false success they proclaim became real success? If they triumphed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or managed to topple the government of Pakistan? Or a major Middle Eastern government?”

He said the task confronting the US and Europe was to fracture and destroy extremism and deflate its ideology, and the best opportunity to do that was in Afghanistan.—AFP