Naija News

The US Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) launched a fake
vaccination scheme in
Pakistan in a bid to obtain
Osama bin Laden's family DNA
to wage a raid on his alleged
compound, a report has
disclosed.
According to Pakistani and US
officials, the notorious CIA
operatives recruited a senior
Pakistani physician in the city
of Abbottabad, where it
believed the al-Qaeda leader
was hiding, to promote a false
vaccination campaign as part
of a covert operation to locate
bin Laden, through his family
members, and mount an
attack against him, The
Guardian reports.
"The whole thing was totally
irregular," said a Pakistani
official, adding that, "Bilal
Town [in Abbottabad] 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?"
Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency (ISI) has
since detained the physician,
Shakil Afridi, who colluded
with the notorious American
spy agency.
The development comes as
Pakistan continues to grapple
with the persisting spread of
polio.
Humanitarian activists have
voiced serious concerns that
such fake efforts by the US
spy agency will severely harm
global health campaigns by
generating mistrust of
governments, foreign health
workers and relief
organizations.
“One of the great barriers to
vaccination campaigns in
these countries has been a
stubbornly persistent rumor
that the polio vaccine is a
western plot to sterilize
Muslim children,” said Mark
Leon Goldberg of the UN
Dispatch.
Pointing to the adverse impact
of these deceitful tactics on
health endeavors, he added
that “this CIA ruse seems to
confirm all the darkest fears
that vaccination campaigns --
particularly against polio -- are
part of some insidious
American plot.”
US President Barack Obama
claimed that Osama bin Laden
was killed by American forces
on May 1 during a military
attack on a compound in the
Pakistani city of Abbottabad,
near the capital Islamabad.
The Pakistani government has
acknowledged that it had no
knowledge of the raid on its
soil before it took place.
The incident has exacerbated
already strained relations
between Islamabad and
Washington which accuses the
Pakistani government of
collaborating with al-Qaeda
elements.
Recently, the Obama
Administration moved to cut
millions of dollars in aid to
Pakistan, which in turn
threatened to remove its
forces from the Afghan border
if the decision is put into
effect.