Pakistani Journalist killed

Pakistani journalist has been found dead near the capital Islamabad after writing about links between the Pakistani military and al Qaeda, officials said Tuesday.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, worked for an Italian news agency and an online news site registered in Hong Kong. He went missing on Sunday after he left his home in the capital to take part in a television talk show, but never arrived.

Officials said his body was identified by relatives after being found in Mandi Bahauddin. Moreover, Shahzad’s car was found in Sarai Alamgir, 150 kilometres southeast of Islamabad.

“Relatives visited the police station and now they have identified the dead body. They said it is the body of journalist Saleem Shahzad,” police official Zulfiqar Ali told AFP by telephone.

He disappeared two days after writing an investigative report in Asia Times Online that al Qaeda carried out last week’s attack on a naval air base to avenge the arrest of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al Qaeda links.

Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Shahzad had complained about being threatened by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

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