CIA set up fake vaccine plan to catch bin Laden
CBC News
Posted: Jul 12, 2011 1:13 PM ET
Last Updated: Jul 12, 2011 3:14 PM ET
The CIA had set up a fake vaccine program in an effort to verify Osama bin Laden's identity and presence in a compound in Pakistan, according to an investigation by The Guardian newspaper.
The ploy was an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaeda leader's family, the paper said Tuesday.
As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a Pakistani doctor to organize the vaccine drive in Abbottabad.
The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents.
The CIA hatched the plan after its agents tracked an al-Qaeda courier to what later turned out to be bin Laden's Abbottabad compound last summer, which was then monitored by satellite and surveillance from a local CIA safe house.
The idea was to compare DNA from any of the bin Laden children in the compound to a sample from his sister, who died in Boston in 2010, which would provide evidence that the family was there.
The doctor went to Abbottabad in March offering free vaccines. He bypassed the management of the local health services, by paying generous sums to low-ranking local government health workers, who took part in the operation without knowing about the connection to bin Laden.
It's not clear how the doctor hoped to get DNA from the vaccinations. Nurses could have been trained to withdraw some blood in the needle after injecting the drug.
A nurse gained entry to the bin Laden compound to administer the vaccines while the doctor, waited outside. The nurse took in a handbag fitted with an electronic device.
It's not known whether the CIA managed to obtain any bin Laden DNA, although one source told the Guardian the operation did not succeed.
The CIA refused to comment on the vaccination plot.
