(2012-03-02) Cia Tactics To Trap Bin Laden Linked With Polio Crisis Say Aid Groups

CIA tactics to trap Osama Bin Laden linked with polio crisis, say aid groups. In July the Guardian revealed that the CIA used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, in the hunt for Bin Laden. In the weeks before the 3 May operation to kill Bin Laden, Afridi was instructed to set up a fake vaccination scheme in the town of Abbottabad, in order to gain entry to the house where it was suspected that the al-Qaida chief was living, and extract DNA samples from his family members.

However the ruse has provided seeming proof for a widely held belief in Pakistan, fuelled by religious extremists, that polio drops are a western conspiracy to sterilise the population.

The CIA-led immunisation campaign compromises the perception of US NGOs as independent actors focused on a common good, and casts suspicion on their humanitarian workers

Afridi used nurses to go house to house to offer vaccinations for hepatitis, managing to gain entry to the house where Bin Laden was suspected of living.