A fight over the murder of Calipari?

[The Mechanic]

From a Reuters article carried on SOTT four days ago. link: http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/127991-Italy+still+wants+justice+from+U.S.+for+Iraq+shooting

Italy has raised the stakes in a spat with the United States over the killing by a U.S. soldier of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq, saying Washington must set things right by assuming responsibility for the death.

Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema openly challenged the United States at a weekend commemoration of Nicola Calipari, the agent killed on March 4, 2005 at a U.S. military checkpoint near Baghdad airport.

SOTT made this comment below the article:

Comment: Giuliana Sgrena was kidnapped in Iraq by "insurgents". She was rescued after agent calipari negotiated with them. As Calipari and Sgrena approached a US checkpoint following her release, troops opened fire killing Calipari and wounding Sgrena. It is very likely that troops were attempting to kill both. It is also very likely that during his negotiations with the "insurgents" Calipari found out something about who they were really working for and who was behind the spate of kidnappings and murders of foreign aid workers and NGO reporters like Sgrena. Sgrena was also involved in reporting on eyewitness accounts of the US attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Basically, people working for the US government were and are today behind many of the sectarian attacks and bombings. Calipari discovered this and was murdered by US troops for it.

When I read this article, I remembered reading about Calipari and Sgrena two years ago. Here's the FlashBack link to SOTT's article about the murder from two years back: http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/127993-U.S.+forces+shoot+just-freed+Italian+hostage%2C+kill+negotiator+

I read a report the other day: http://www.ifex.org/alerts/content/view/full/81589/
I quote the entire article:

Italian reporter goes missing; the Taliban says it has seized "a spy posing as a journalist"

Country/Topic: Afghanistan
Date: 07 March 2007
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Person(s): Daniele Mastrogiacomo
Target(s): journalist(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): missing
Urgency: Flash

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a 6 March 2007 CPJ press release:

CPJ expresses alarm as Italian reporter goes missing in Afghanistan

New York, March 6, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a veteran reporter for the daily La Repubblica based in Afghanistan, has been out of contact with his newspaper since Sunday. The Taliban today said it had seized a man it alleged was a spy posing as a journalist, along with the man's two Afghan assistants.

La Repubblica Director Ezio Mauro said today that Mastrogiacomo was in Kandahar province on an "important reporting mission" when he last contacted editors two days ago. Italy's deputy foreign minister, Franco Danieli, told the Senate in Rome today that a statement attributed to the Taliban and released in Kabul claimed the group had captured a journalist from La Repubblica and accused him of being a spy. Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema later told the Italian broadcaster Tg1 that officials believe Mastrogiacomo "was effectively captured by the Taliban's military structure," The Associated Press reported.

"We are greatly concerned about the welfare of our colleague Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was doing his job documenting the news," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "We call on those holding any members of the press to release them unharmed immediately."

Initial reports of a journalist's abduction included conflicting information. In Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman told AP that the group had detained an unnamed Briton and two Afghan assistants in Helmand province. The spokesman said the Briton claimed to work for La Repubblica, but the paper told CPJ that only Mastrogiacomo was missing.

La Repubblica described the 52-year-old Mastrogiacomo as a veteran journalist. He was born in Pakistan, where his father was an engineer for an Italian company. He has dual Italian-Swiss citizenship, but was traveling with his Italian passport, the paper said. The paper said Mastrogiacomo, a reporter for 27 years, has worked since 2002 as a staff correspondent in Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq.

Both Kandahar and Helmand provinces are strongholds of the Taliban, drug traffickers and criminal groups. NATO and Afghan forces today launched what they described as their biggest offensive yet against the Taliban and drug lords in Helmand.

On November 3, Gabriele Torsello, an Italian freelance photographer who had been held for ransom for more than three weeks by a criminal group in Kandahar, was released unharmed.

I can't help but feel those events are related. On march 4th the Italian Foreign Minister said that Washington must assume responsibility for the death of Calipari. It even makes headlines in Sunday's La Repubblica newspaper of Rome. Now, on the exact same day or perhaps the next, a reporter, of that same paper La Republica no less, is kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. I smell something like retaliation, blackmail, or something similar.

So, what are your thoughts on this?

[2007-06-07: edited to remove an image I scanned that wasn't online anymore]

 

[PopHistorian]

Just reminded of the damage control/distraction from US involvement in such killings that's out there now: i.e. CNN reporting on the deaths of umpteen journalists in Russia in recent years and clearly implying Kremlin involvement as something the US would never do; and the Daniel Perle movie.