By lex, on July 5th, 2011
Unhappy at the way a journalist had portrayed the country’s defense and intelligence establishment, the Pakistani ISI murdered him, according to US intelligence:
New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, 40, from the capital, Islamabad, and after the discovery of his mortally wounded body, showed that senior officials of the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, directed the attack on him in an effort to silence criticism, two senior administration officials said.
The intelligence, which several administration officials said they believed was reliable and conclusive, showed that the actions of the ISI, as it is known, were “barbaric and unacceptable,” one of the officials said. They would not disclose further details about the intelligence.
He was bludgeoned to death, it appears. Because of his criticism about the professionalism of the country’s security apparatus.
A purely internal affair meant to hammer the Pakistani version of the Fourth Estate back into the state-sponsored line. At least until the US revealed its intelligence findings.
The gloves are well and truly off now.
I sincerely hope that our diplomatic corps is hard at work seeking transit privileges to – and more importantly from – Afghanistan through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
