Pakistan’s image doesn’t seem to be getting better. Sure, we had Karachi Fashion Week recently, but the near-daily bombings in Peshawar over the last week are sending the message that Pakistan is spiralling out of control.

Then the UK’s The Sunday Times finds an Irishman to drive home the point that everyone in the world (who doesn’t already) should fear Pakistan and Islam.

The Irishman is not the happy, peace-loving type of man you might expect, given that he was a former altar boy and trained as a nurse. Terry Kelly is not a neo-con or Islamophobe, though, either. He is now Khalid Kelly, a West-hating jihadi who resides in the Swat Valley. It’s there that he has been undergoing military training. But that’s not his only connection to the land of the pure. He has a Pakistani wife too, and promotes Pakistan’s soft image this way:

Kelly said he moved to Pakistan to join the “best of the best” in the jihadist struggle and to work towards replacing the civilian government with an Islamic one. As Islamabad vows to take on Islamic militants, Kelly harbours a dark hope that Pakistan will become like Iraq with “beheadings and kidnappings.”

Kelly clearly opened up to The Times reporter, Nicola Smith. He said that he “learnt how to use an M-16 in five hours . . . Next week, inshallah, I could be in Afghanistan fighting a British soldier” and that he named his son after his role model, Osama bin Laden. His dream is to kill infidels and have his son follow in his footsteps:

Asked how he would feel about his own three-year-old son becoming a suicide bomber he replied: “I hope he goes to jannat [heaven] before marriageable age.”

His interpretation of his adopted faith is equally disturbing and will do wonders for the image of Islam:

“We are told to terrorise the enemies of Islam . . . The world will become a dangerous place. Everybody had better start embracing Islam or people will start flying planes into buildings again.”

Kelly roams freely, travelling to Rawalpindi often to spread his message. And his message is a disturbing one: he is able to paint a scary picture of the future without even mentioning Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.