Syed Saleem Shahzad had strong hands.
When he took hold of one of yours and clasped it enthusiastically you wondered what damage might be done. It was just that way three weeks ago in Islamabad, in the aftermath of the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden. There was the broad smile, the laughter, the luxuriant beard and the strong grip. "How have you been?" he said, as we got into his Toyota Corolla.
Fissures have opened within the Obama administration over the drone program targeting militants in Pakistan, with the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and some top military leaders pushing to rein in the Central Intelligence Agency's aggressive pace of strikes.
Such a move would roll back, at least temporarily, a program that President Barack Obama dramatically expanded soon after taking office, making it one of the U.S.'s main weapons against the Pakistan-based militants fighting coalition troops in Afghanistan.
UPDATE 1325 GMT: Pakistan's Geo News has posted that Saleem Shahzad's car has been found with an unidentified dead body and the journalist's identity.
Geo TV is now reporting that the http://www.twitter.com/AleemMaqbool">body is that of Shahzad and it bears marks of torture.
Sources on Twitter are reporting that Shahzad's brother-in-law has identified the body.
Taliban militants assaulted the headquarters of Pakistan’s naval air force, battling on Monday security forces in the most brazen attack in the unstable, nuclear-armed country since the killing of Osama bin Laden, killing eight people, injuring 16 others and blowing up at least two military aircraft.
The dead include seven navy officials and one Ranger.
Blasts rang out and helicopters hovered above the PNS Mehran base near Shahrah-e-Faisal almost 12 hours after more than 20 Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants stormed the heavily guarded building with guns and grenades, blowing up at least one aircraft and casting doubt on the military’s ability to protect its installations.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 10:51 | Scott Lucas in Afghanistan, EA Afghanistan-Pakistan, India and Pakistan Speaking to the US programme 60 Minutes, Afghanistan's former head of intelligence, Amrullah Saleh, launches a series of attacks on Pakistan's political, military, and intelligence activities. He claims that the Pakistani authorities long knew of Osama bin Laden's whereabouts and that agencies in Islamabad have supported the Taliban on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Taliban 
Adam Entous reports for The Wall Street Journal about a latest sign of the tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Beyond the headline claims are even more interesting questions. For example, who in the US Administration, probably the Pentagon, fed Entous the story with the leaked documents and the interviews?
Adam Entous, John Kerry, Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan 
Photo: AFPThe Tehrik-e-Taliban on Friday claimed their first major strike in revenge for Osama bin Laden’s death as more than 80 people were killed and at least 115 were wounded in a suicide and bomb attack on FC personnel.
“This was the first revenge for Osama’s martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
It was the deadliest attack in the nuclear-armed country this year and came with Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership plunged into crisis over the killing of the al Qaeda chief by US commandos on May 2.
Head of Pakistan's ISI, Ahmed Shuja PashaWe give billions in aid to Pakistan’s military and civilian government. Yet Pakistan is harboring our enemies and even the enemies, one could argue, of its own healthy survival. Portions of our money are being funneled into the variety of insurgent networks whose fighters are killing American soldiers, Afghan soldiers, American civilians, Afghan civilians, European civilians, Pakistani civilians—mothers, fathers, children on multiple continents. Why, asks a US army major, did all his friends die in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province when the real problem is on the other side of the border? Why, asks a twelve-year-old Afghan girl in Kandahar whose family has been wiped out by US air strikes, are you bombing us? How has this come to pass?
Bombing in Lahore, December 2009Could it actually be that Pakistan is now so bereft of capacity that it cannot defend itself against a ragtag set of ruffians and thugs who use teenaged boys as human missiles? Or alternatively, could it be that Pakistan is now so far off the moral deep-end that it knowingly and deliberately assists and enables the world’s most wanted terrorists, despite making claims to the contrary?
Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 11:31 | Scott Lucas in EA Afghanistan-Pakistan, EA USA, India and Pakistan, US Foreign Policy 
A discussion this morning with BBC Coventry and Warwickshire --- it begins with the release by the US of a silent video showing Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan compound but then considers why the Americans put out the footage, what it shows about bin Laden, and what significance, if any, this latest development has in the conflict within and beyond Pakistan.
The item begins about the 1:03.45 mark.
