Pakistani Media Outs CIA Chief: Report

While the Obama administration is claiming that there’s no evidence that Pakistan knew about the hideout of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, suspicions have been further raised now that a Pakistani TV station and newspaper outed the CIA’s alleged Islamabad station chief. The name was first reported Friday by ARY, a private Pakistani TV channel. “If we did not mention the man's name, the credibility of the story would have been reduced," ARY's Islamabad bureau chief, Sabir Shakir, who also claimed he had “one-plus” sources corroborating the purported name, told The Wall Street Journal. The Nation, a right-wing Pakistani newspaper, then picked up the story. “It has to have been released by some government agency, said The Nation’s editor, Salim Bokhari. “Who else would know such information?” Meanwhile, a former senior U.S. intelligence official told the Wall Street Journal that any outing of agents would be Pakistan’s “own little way of retaliating” for how “very upset and embarrassed” they were over the unauthorized raid on bin Laden’s compound.