Saleem ShahzadAt the end of May, we reported on the murder of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad: he was abducted, tortured, and slain just after he published an article claiming Al Qa'eda had infiltrated a major naval base in Pakistan.
Now the US Government is pointing the finger at Pakistani intelligence for the crime. They put out the message on Monday through The New York Times:
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.
Another official declared, “Every indication is that this was a deliberate, targeted killing that was most likely meant to send shock waves through Pakistan’s journalist community and civil society."
The sources continued that "Obama administration officials will deliberate in the coming days how to present the information about Mr. Shahzad to the Pakistani government".
While they are deliberating, Washington is continuing to shout its allegations. On Thursday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, was forthright: "[This] was sanctioned by the government. I have not seen anything to disabuse the report that the government knew about this."
Admiral Mullen said that he had a "huge concern" about Mr. Shahzad's death and its effect on US-Pakistan relations: "It's not a way to move ahead. It's a way to, quite frankly, spiral in the wrong direction."