The US Vice Presidential candidates on Friday described an "unstable" Pakistan as "extremely dangerous" in their first live debate, with Democrat John Biden contending that its tribal areas and Afghanistan were the "central front" of the war on terror and not Iraq as projected by the Republicans.

At the face off with political novice Sarah Palin, 44, ahead of the November election Biden, known for his deft understanding of international relations, warned that the next attack on the US is "going to come from al Qaeda planning in the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan".

He declared that his government "will go after" terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden if there is "actual intelligence".

In the first presidential debate last week, Democrat Barack Obama too said if the US had al-Qaida leaders and bin Laden in sight and Pakistan was unable or unwilling to act, "then we should take them out."

Asked which was the greater threat, a nuclear Iran or an unstable Pakistan, Biden, 65, said "they're both extremely dangerous. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons. Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean.

"Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be very, very destabilising.... So they're both very dangerous. They both would be game changers," he said during the feisty debate in St Loius, Missouri.

Biden said while Republican Presidential nominee John McCain was insisting "that the central war in the front on terror is in Iraq. I promise you, if an attack comes in the homeland, it's going to come as our security services have said, it is going to come from al Qaeda planning in the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's where they live. That's where they are."

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