CIA vaccination drive in Pakistan slammed by Red Cross: Will cost lives

[mshoaib61]

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The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents.

Relations between Washington and Islamabad, already severely strained by the Bin Laden operation, have deteriorated considerably since then. The doctor's arrest has exacerbated these tensions. The US is understood to be concerned for the doctor's safety, and is thought to have intervened on his behalf.

The vaccination plan was conceived after American intelligence officers tracked an al-Qaida courier, known as Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, to what turned out to be Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound last summer. The agency monitored the compound by satellite and surveillance from a local CIA safe house in Abbottabad, but wanted confirmation that Bin Laden was there before mounting a risky operation inside another country.

DNA from any of the Bin Laden children in the compound could be compared with a sample from his sister, who died in Boston in 2010, to provide evidence that the family was present.

So agents approached Afridi, the health official in charge of Khyber, part of the tribal area that runs along the Afghan border.

The doctor went to Abbottabad in March, saying he had procured funds to give free vaccinations for hepatitis B. Bypassing the management of the Abbottabad health services, he paid generous sums to low-ranking local government health workers, who took part in the operation without knowing about the connection to Bin Laden. Health visitors in the area were among the few people who had gained access to the Bin Laden compound in the past, administering polio drops to some of the children.

Afridi had posters for the vaccination programme put up around Abbottabad, featuring a vaccine made by Amson, a medicine manufacturer based on the outskirts of Islamabad.

In March health workers administered the vaccine in a poor neighbourhood on the edge of Abbottabad called Nawa Sher. The hepatitis B vaccine is usually given in three doses, the second a month after the first. But in April, instead of administering the second dose in Nawa Sher, the doctor returned to Abbottabad and moved the nurses on to Bilal Town, the suburb where Bin Laden lived.

It is not known exactly how the doctor hoped to get DNA from the vaccinations, although nurses could have been trained to withdraw some blood in the needle after administrating the drug.

"The whole thing was totally irregular," said one Pakistani official. "Bilal Town is a well-to-do area. Why would you choose that place to give free vaccines? And what is the official surgeon of Khyber doing working in Abbottabad?"

A nurse known as Bakhto, whose full name is Mukhtar Bibi, managed to gain entry to the Bin Laden compound to administer the vaccines. According to several sources, the doctor, who waited outside, told her to take in a handbag that was fitted with an electronic device. It is not clear what the device was, or whether she left it behind. It is also not known whether the CIA managed to obtain any Bin Laden DNA, although one source suggested the operation did not succeed.

Mukhtar Bibi, who was unaware of the real purpose of the vaccination campaign, would not comment on the programme.

Pakistani intelligence became aware of the doctor's activities during the investigation into the US raid in which Bin Laden was killed on the top floor of the Abbottabad house. Islamabad refused to comment officially on Afridi's arrest, but one senior official said: "Wouldn't any country detain people for working for a foreign spy service?"

The doctor is one of several people suspected of helping the CIA to have been arrested by the ISI, but he is thought to be the only one still in custody.

Pakistan is furious over being kept in the dark about the raid, and the US is angry that the Pakistani investigation appears more focused on finding out how the CIA was able to track down the al-Qaida leader than on how Bin Laden was able to live in Abbottabad for five years.

Over the weekend, relations were pummelled further when the US announced that it would cut $800m (£500m) worth of military aid as punishment for Pakistan's perceived lack of co-operation in the anti-terror fight. William Daley, the White House chief of staff, went on US television on Sunday to say: "Obviously, there's still a lot of pain that the political system in Pakistan is feeling by virtue of the raid that we did to get Osama bin Laden, something the president felt strongly about and we have no regrets over."

The CIA refused to comment on the vaccination plot.


CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA | World news | The Guardian

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Very ingenuous to say the least.

Intelligence gathering is no longer merely cloak and dagger!

[President Camacho]

Very ingenuous to say the least.

Intelligence gathering is no longer merely cloak and dagger!

Yea... now it is apron and syringe

[Malik Usman]

Lot of more gossips are coming in Future...........same like 9/11.

[Cheetah786]

Senior Pakistani doctor who organised vaccine programme in Abbottabad arrested by ISI for working with US agents

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents.

Relations between Washington and Islamabad, already severely strained by the Bin Laden operation, have deteriorated considerably since then. The doctor's arrest has exacerbated these tensions. The US is understood to be concerned for the doctor's safety, and is thought to have intervened on his behalf.

The vaccination plan was conceived after American intelligence officers tracked an al-Qaida courier, known as Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, to what turned out to be Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound last summer. The agency monitored the compound by satellite and surveillance from a local CIA safe house in Abbottabad, but wanted confirmation that Bin Laden was there before mounting a risky operation inside another country.

DNA from any of the Bin Laden children in the compound could be compared with a sample from his sister, who died in Boston in 2010, to provide evidence that the family was present.

So agents approached Afridi, the health official in charge of Khyber, part of the tribal area that runs along the Afghan border.

The doctor went to Abbottabad in March, saying he had procured funds to give free vaccinations for hepatitis B. Bypassing the management of the Abbottabad health services, he paid generous sums to low-ranking local government health workers, who took part in the operation without knowing about the connection to Bin Laden. Health visitors in the area were among the few people who had gained access to the Bin Laden compound in the past, administering polio drops to some of the children.

Afridi had posters for the vaccination programme put up around Abbottabad, featuring a vaccine made by Amson, a medicine manufacturer based on the outskirts of Islamabad.
n March health workers administered the vaccine in a poor neighbourhood on the edge of Abbottabad called Nawa Sher. The hepatitis B vaccine is usually given in three doses, the second a month after the first. But in April, instead of administering the second dose in Nawa Sher, the doctor returned to Abbottabad and moved the nurses on to Bilal Town, the suburb where Bin Laden lived.

It is not known exactly how the doctor hoped to get DNA from the vaccinations, although nurses could have been trained to withdraw some blood in the needle after administrating the drug.

"The whole thing was totally irregular," said one Pakistani official. "Bilal Town is a well-to-do area. Why would you choose that place to give free vaccines? And what is the official surgeon of Khyber doing working in Abbottabad?"

A nurse known as Bakhto, whose full name is Mukhtar Bibi, managed to gain entry to the Bin Laden compound to administer the vaccines. According to several sources, the doctor, who waited outside, told her to take in a handbag that was fitted with an electronic device. It is not clear what the device was, or whether she left it behind. It is also not known whether the CIA managed to obtain any Bin Laden DNA, although one source suggested the operation did not succeed.

Mukhtar Bibi, who was unaware of the real purpose of the vaccination campaign, would not comment on the programme.

Pakistani intelligence became aware of the doctor's activities during the investigation into the US raid in which Bin Laden was killed on the top floor of the Abbottabad house. Islamabad refused to comment officially on Afridi's arrest, but one senior official said: "Wouldn't any country detain people for working for a foreign spy service?"

The doctor is one of several people suspected of helping the CIA to have been arrested by the ISI, but he is thought to be the only one still in custody.

Pakistan is furious over being kept in the dark about the raid, and the US is angry that the Pakistani investigation appears more focused on finding out how the CIA was able to track down the al-Qaida leader than on how Bin Laden was able to live in Abbottabad for five years.

Over the weekend, relations were pummelled further when the US announced that it would cut $800m (£500m) worth of military aid as punishment for Pakistan's perceived lack of co-operation in the anti-terror fight. William Daley, the White House chief of staff, went on US television on Sunday to say: "Obviously, there's still a lot of pain that the political system in Pakistan is feeling by virtue of the raid that we did to get Osama bin Laden, something the president felt strongly about and we have no regrets over."

The CIA refused to comment on the vaccination plot.

CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA | World news | The Guardian

[President Camacho]

Feel the presence... http://www.defence.pk/forums/strateg...amily-dna.html

[mohsinkid]

actually this news was supposed to be printed in NOTW(news of the world ) but that ended last sunday so some other newspaper took their responsibility

[jbgt90]

wonderful . these guys seem resourceful

[DarK-LorD]

CIA's power has no bounds.

[dk33]

Was Bin Laden vaccine plot worth all the risk?

The CIA reportedly recruited Dr Shakil Afridi in order to get Bin Laden DNA. This politicises aid and puts lives in jeopardy


Andrew Chambers
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 July 2011 15.30 BST


Conspiracy theories over vaccination programmes have prevented polio eradication in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Photograph: Tariq Mahmood/EPA
The revelation that the CIA used a covert vaccination programme to attempt to obtain DNA from the Bin Laden compound in Pakistan could have a profound impact on NGOs, vaccination drives and indeed on global healthcare policies.

It politicises medical aid and will fuel anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, which risk rolling back the successes in programmes such as the multibillion-dollar polio eradication initiative.

According to reports, the CIA recruited Dr Shakil Afridi, a top-ranking medical professional, to carry out a regional vaccination programme for the purpose of confirming whether Osama bin Laden was indeed in Abbottabad. In April, nurses were able to gain access to the compound under the pretext of providing a childhood hepatitis B vaccine.

While medical care is frequently used as a diplomatic tool to foster good relations, the use of a covert medical programme by a foreign intelligence agency takes the politicisation of medical care to a new level.

It is reported that the programme did not provide the necessary follow-up doses – which if correct means the children are not fully protected against the virus. The health professionals who were employed to deliver the vaccine were also unaware that this was a CIA operation.

The blurring of the lines between medical and military has a significant effect on medical and aid professionals. Oxfam reports that "225 aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped in violent attacks" last year. This number has trebled over the past decade both as a result of expanded work in conflict areas and the increased justification that aid workers are "agents of the west" and as such are legitimate targets. This is a particular problem in Pakistan, where clerics in the North-West Frontier province have previously issued fatwas encouraging attacks against NGOs.

The CIA story has already been widely reported in Pakistan and around the world – leading to fears that it will have an adverse effect on vaccination programmes. In 2010, measles alone killed more than 21,000 people in Pakistan, so ensuring childhood vaccinations for hepatitis, measles and polio is a developmental priority.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has expressed concerns over the impact that these reports will have – stating that it hopes this story "does not prevent children in Pakistan being vaccinated against polio and other diseases".

This is a concern that should be shared by the global community. Since 1985, an estimated $9bn has been spent on attempts to eradicate the polio virus and another $1bn will be spent this year alone. There are now only four countries with endemic polio, with Pakistan accounting for 60% of cases in these countries. Indeed, Pakistan has been described as the "final frontier" for a polio-free world. Polio transmission is particularly concentrated in the north-west tribal regions close to Abbottabad.

While the difficult terrain and civil instability have certainly been factors in the problems of eradicating polio in Pakistan, the belief that vaccinations are part of a western conspiracy has also proved difficult to overcome. Through both extremist clerics and word of mouth, theories of a western plot to stunt Islamic population growth have spread across the North-West Frontier province.

Due to these fears, in 2007 more than 24,000 children were prevented from being vaccinated. When the Taliban took control of the Swat valley in 2009 they shut down NGO offices and banned the polio vaccination – rejecting it as an "infidel vaccine" which "causes infertility". This has allowed the virus to avoid eradication and remain endemic in the region.

It was in Nigeria that the polio vaccination conspiracy first emerged before spreading to Pakistan. Fears that the vaccine was part of a western plot to reduce Muslim populations were so pronounced that in 2003 the Nigerian government suspended the vaccination programme for a year. As a result, annual cases more than doubled, and the World Health Organisation estimated an additional $200m was needed in 2005 alone.

Nigeria's experience offers two stark warnings – both about the potential for the CIA plot to spread anti-vaccination conspiracies across the globe – and about the massive financial and human cost in any disruption to vaccination programs like that of polio.

Remarkably, despite all this risk, one source claims that the Abbotabad mission actually failed to collect any DNA for analysis. Indeed, with the mission resulting in the recent arrest of Afridi, the safety of medical aid workers in the region further jeopardised and with the reputation of vaccination programmes across the globe damaged, it is valid to question whether such actions should ever have been justified.

Was Bin Laden vaccine plot worth all the risk? | Andrew Chambers | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

[muse]

In most other countries host governments go to great lengths to express their disappointment over friendly nations running clandestine operations on host country soil -- Pakistan have expressed such disappointment diplomatically, publicly, exactly when?

[Awesome]

Phony CIA immunisation drive: Vaccination drives under threat – The Express Tribune

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani officials and international health organisations expressed concern that an unconfirmed report of a phony CIA vaccination program meant to obtain DNA evidence in the hunt for Osama bin Laden could harm legitimate immunisation programs in the country, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

This fear is especially pronounced because of the rising problem of polio. Pakistan was the only country to record an increase in cases of the crippling disease last year and now has the highest incidence of polio in the world.
Earlier this week, the British Guardian newspaper reported that the CIA recruited a Pakistani doctor to run a Hepatitis B vaccination drive in the northwest town of Abbottabad in March in an attempt to get DNA from Bin Laden’s children and confirm the al Qaeda chief was holed up there. The story cited unnamed Pakistani and US officials.

The CIA declined comment on the report when contacted by The Associated Press. Health officials held meetings about the alleged CIA scheme on Tuesday and expressed concern that it could have a negative impact on immunisation programs in other areas of the northwest.

Michael O’Brien, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Pakistan, expressed concern that the reported CIA programme could make it more difficult for medical officials in other parts of the country to administer critical vaccines.

“Anything that compromises the perception and impartiality of medical personnel undermines the activities of medical personnel everywhere, especially in places where access to health care is badly needed and security conditions for health care workers are already difficult,” O’Brien said.

World Health Organiation director general Margaret Chan complained last year that health workers administering polio vaccines could only reach two in every three children in the tribal region because of the security situation.

The WHO expressed concern on Wednesday about the alleged CIA vaccination program, saying the organisation is “concerned about the effect of the report on children’s immunity in the country.” “Health interventions are by nature apolitical,” said WHO spokesperson Hayatee Hasan. “We hope that this story does not prevent children in Pakistan being vaccinated against polio, measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14th, 2011.

The US truly has no regard for the loss of human life in Pakistan. This will claim the lives of a lot of kids in Pakistan. Pakistan better not release that doctor and unearth all the other doctors that were involved, surely just one dude couldn't do this.

[DelhiDareDevil]

Asim Aquil please give solutions, then rather picking out bad news all the time.

I mean like your solution, what you would like to see.

[Transformers]

seems already posted.

[Last Hope]

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Pakistan posses a great danger to US. Hence they are trying to use the internal destabilization method.
Is the danger from the Nuclear assets or the hatred in the hearts of people, we cannot say. But things are too obvious.

They used to get alone with it, but since Raymond Davis was caught, the US's work was unveiled hence nearly breaking the ties of US-Pakistan.
And they aren't listening and damaging their reputation in the eyes of Pakistanis, if not the world.
They are fighting Military to get the trainers, they are pushing us to do many stupid things, which gives away the cover in suspection.

Bad play.