Gabbard says Pakistan missiles a future threat to US, but experts push back
Al Jazeera
The US raises concerns but analysts say Pakistan’s missile programme focuses on India, which has longer-range missiles.
Islamabad, Pakistan – The United States’s top intelligence official has placed Pakistan alongside Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as a country whose advancing missile capabilities could eventually put US territory within reach.
Presenting the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment [PDF] before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the five countries were “researching and developing an array of novel, advanced or traditional missile delivery systems with nuclear and conventional payloads, that put our homeland within range”.
On Pakistan specifically, Gabbard told lawmakers that “Pakistan’s long-range ballistic missile development potentially could include ICBMs with the range capable of striking the homeland”.
The written assessment went further, placing Pakistan across multiple threat categories.
On missiles, it said Pakistan “continues to develop increasingly sophisticated missile technology that provides its military the means to develop missile systems with the capability to strike targets beyond South Asia, and if these trends continue, Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that would threaten the US”.
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