I read Shazad’s writings on Pakistan and the Taliban for years. Every single story of his informed me as to the real, on the ground situation. Never once did I close the Asia Times window and not sit back and think hard on what I had just learned from Shazad.
Often I wondered how in the hell he got his information and remained alive, but these were always fleeting thoughts, because it was the information he brought to light that stayed with me. He was without question one of the bravest and most competent journalists I have ever read.
He was kidnapped and killed — allegedly by the Pakistani Intelligence Services — and now the dark hole of misinformation and lies is without that one beam of light that made the Asia Times a constant open tab on my browser.
You really only know the worth of something after its gone.
RIP Saleem.
2 thoughts on “Syed Saleem Shazad”
May Saleem Shazad RIP. SaschaHe was a great journalist brave, courageos , though a bit biased. Some say allegly he was a MI6 agent.
My only point of discontent is why you blame ISI for his murder?
If somebody from MI6 wants to help and aid you they will advise you that a death threat is against you. Protection has to arranged by local police.
the operative word above is “allegedly” — i am not brazen enough to claim that I know what could have happened in pakistan. I find it easy to believe that he might have been an agent — his information was so far above and beyond what most other writers contributed. Either he was an agent himself (and walked a thin line between spying and writing) or he knw many agents … who themselves walked thin lines.
regardless, now we know even less about what is really going in in Pakistan and Afghanistan …