Pakistan needs to move away from US: Imran Khan

Calling President Asif Ali Zardari an impotent puppet, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said that Islamabad needs to move away from the US as Pakistan was using its own army to kill citizens with American money.

He said the war on terror was 'unwinnable' and that the American aid to Islamabad was destroying Pakistan.

"The aid to our puppet government from the US is destroying our country. We're basically using our army to kill our own people with American money. We have to separate from the US," Khan told The Guardian' daily.

Arguing that the war on terror was unwinnable, Khan said, "The Soviets killed more than a million people in Afghanistan. They were fighting more at the end than the beginning. So clearly a population of 15 million could take a million dead and still keep fighting."

"They (the Americans) are going to have to kill a lot of people to make any impact and they also have in Zardari an impotent puppet as Pakistani president who has not delivered anything to the Americans."

He added: "The Americans also don't realise that this whole Arab spring was against puppets or dictators. People want democracy. So this whole idea of planting your own man there, a dictator? neocolonialism is what it's called ? is not going to work any more."

Khan bristled with anger on the charge that Pakistan was allegedly complicit in harbouring Osama bin Laden.