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Summary
US Senator John Kerry has said that Pakistan armed forces have achieved great success in war against terror in Waziristan. Pakistan is in danger of becoming the epicentre of global extremism if the United States and its allies fail to bring stability to neighbouring Afghanistan, US Senator John Kerry said. Kerry was in Afghanistan last week and helped convince Afghan President Hamid Karzai to agree to an election run-off on November 7. He also said that the democracy of Pakistan is at stake. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think-tank, Kerry said the US must be realistic about what it can achieve in Afghanistan. But he warned that a failure to restrain the Taliban's influence and defeat al-Qaeda would be a boon for followers in Pakistan, where much of the terrorist group fled after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began in 2001, soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Pakistan's military has been engaged since the summer in a major offensive against the Taliban in its remote north-western region that borders Afghanistan.
