From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last week, Pakistani journalist and bureau chief for the Asia Times,

Salim Shahzad, published a story about an alleged al-Qaeda infiltration in the Pakistani Navy.

He wrote the story after a naval base in Pakistan South was attacked

by al-Qaeda insurgents, who claimed to be seeking revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Two days after his story was published, Shazad was abducted from his home. This Tuesday, he was

found dead in a canal with marks of torture on his body.

Journalists in Pakistan are blaming the country's intelligence service, the ISI for Shazade's killing.

Freelance journalist Shahan Mufti says that Shazad's killing is part of a larger war that's being waged in Pakistan.

This war is being fought not between two parties, but many

parties. It is being fought on one hand by militants and on the other hand by a couple of

intelligence agencies. So the Pakistani intelligence agency is involved. It has its hands deep in

this war. The CIA, who's carrying out the drone campaign and has foot soldiers in

Pakistan, they're deeply involved in this. And so in this war, information and free information,

misinformation, become very potent tools. And I think that's the context in which this journalist

has turned up dead. But even as they're in the crosshairs of this war, news outlets and journalists put themselves

at risk from the very organizations that provide the bulk of their information. For instance,

Salim Shahzad had sources deep within the ISI, the military, and within al-Qaeda, right?

That's correct, especially in that northwestern part of Pakistan, where the war is at its hottest.

That is an area that journalists don't have direct access to.

They are banned from going into those areas.

So these journalists are deeply dependent on the ISI, deeply dependent on the militants, and deeply

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