From AP:

Pakistan has expelled an American journalist who wrote in The New York Times Magazine about the rise of pro-Taliban militants in this key U.S. ally, a media rights group said Saturday.

A Pakistani official denied that Nicholas Schmidle had been deported, however, and said the American lacked a journalist visa. Schmidle, a visiting scholar at Pakistan's state-run Institute of Strategic Studies in the capital, Islamabad, occasionally wrote media articles.

A statement issued by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the Interior Ministry issued a deportation order to Schmidle on Tuesday — less than a week after his report "Next-Gen Taliban" appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

"CPJ is unfortunately accustomed to reporting on the government's attacks on the local media, but now harassment seems to be spreading to foreign journalists as well," said Joel Simon, the CPJs executive director.

Schmidle's article, published on Jan. 6, was based on interviews with some of the officials, clerics and fugitive militant leaders who were on the run or fighting security forces in the valley of Swat and in tribal areas along the Afghan border.

To write it, he "secretly traveled" to militant strongholds, prompting authorities to expel him, a security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

An official at the press information department said Schmidle was not in the country on a journalist visa.