WASHINGTON, Oct 15: US intelligence agencies have reported that increased violence, massive energy and food shortages and political instability threaten to destabilise Pakistan.

The report, known as the National Intelligence Estimate, is collectively produced by 16 US intelligence agencies including CIA and the FBI, and is presented to the US president and Congress.

The McClatchy group, which publishes more than 100 newspapers across the US, claims to have acquired a copy of the report which is to be presented to the administration and lawmakers later this month.

The report, published in McClatchy newspapers, quotes US intelligence officials who prepared the NIE as saying that their draft describes the situation in Pakistan as “very bad”, and “very bleak”, and it portrays Pakistan as being “on the edge”.

The US intelligence report says that the dire situation inside Pakistan is due, in part, to an Al Qaeda backed insurgency and the Pakistani Army’s unwillingness to cooperate with the US and crackdown on the terrorist organisation.

The estimate says that “the Islamist insurgency based in the Federally Administered Tribal Area bordering Afghanistan --- the suspected safe haven of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants --- is intensifying”. This year’s intelligence reports are also being prepared to assist a new administration on the resources needed to continue military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and for fighting terrorism in Fata.

The Afghanistan estimate warns that additional American troops are urgently needed there and that Islamic extremists who enjoy safe haven in Pakistan pose a growing threat to the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.