6:50 PM
Dr. Shakeel Afridi was in the thick of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. At the request of the CIA, which had reason to think the al Qaeda leader was holed up in a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, the doctor had mounted a fake hepatitis-immunization program. Having spearheaded several polio-immunization drives over the years, Afridi knew how to stage the campaign convincingly. Renting a house near the compound, he hired a local nurse who thought the drive was genuine. The idea was for her to visit the compound and get a blood sample from at least one of the children who lived there. If the kids in the compound were bin Laden’s, DNA from the sample would tell the Americans they were on the right track.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently acknowledged that Afridi’s efforts were “very helpful” in the run-up to the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden last May. Now, however, Afridi is in a world of trouble. Three weeks after the raid, Pakistani intelligence officers arrested him. His Pakistani-born wife (an American citizen) and children have vanished from the family’s Peshawar home.
Dr. Shakeel Afridi was in the thick of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. At the request of the CIA, which had reason to think the al Qaeda leader was holed up in a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, the doctor had mounted a fake hepatitis-immunization program. Having spearheaded several polio-immunization drives over the years, Afridi knew how to stage the campaign convincingly. Renting a house near the compound, he hired a local nurse who thought the drive was genuine. The idea was for her to visit the compound and get a blood sample from at least one of the children who lived there. If the kids in the compound were bin Laden’s, DNA from the sample would tell the Americans they were on the right track.Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently acknowledged that Afridi’s efforts were “very helpful” in the run-up to the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden last May. Now, however, Afridi is in a world of trouble. Three weeks after the raid, Pakistani intelligence officers arrested him. His Pakistani-born wife (an American citizen) and children have vanished from the family’s Peshawar home.
Posted in: News
0 comments:
Post a Comment