As part of preparations for raid that killed al-Qaida’s leader in Pakistan,
agents organised a vaccine drive in Abbottabad
CIA organised fake vaccination programme in Abbottabad to try and find Osama
bin Laden. Photograph: Md Nadeem/EPA
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.
