Syed Saleem Shahzad

Syed Saleem Shahzad is the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online (Hong Kong). He writes on global security issues, Pakistani armed forces, Islamic movements and Muslim resistance movements in Lebanon and Iraq. Taliban and Al-Qaeda are the regular topics of his writing. He is an international journalist who travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Germany, UK, USA, Lebanon, UAE, Thailand and Syria. He also occasionally writes for prestigious publications like "Le Monde Diplomatique" (France), "La Stampa" (Italy) and "Dawn" (Pakistan). He is South Asia Correspondent for Italian news agency AdnKronos International (AKI) and writes features for the largest Indian news agency Asian News International (ANI). His opinion pieces appear in Qatar-based Islamonline.net.

Saleem's writings have great influence in the region. His work is regularly reproduced in Pakistani English dailies like "Daily Times", "Nation" and "The Post", beside in Urdu newspapers like "Mashriq Peshawar" and "Aaj Peshawar". Many English dailies of Afghanistan and Bangladesh, beside local language dailies, reproduce his articles. His work is often quoted in the Indian press.

Saleem is an associate of the Pakistan Security Research Unit of the department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford. In November 2006 he was held in Taliban captivity in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan for a few days, along with his interpreter. He wrote a detailed account of his days in captivity and time he spent with the Taliban in a series, "In the Land of the Taliban" published in Asia Times Online (www.atimes.com).