Save the Children Workers Flee Pakistan Over Fears of Post-CIA Backlash

CIA's Phony Vaccination Program Makes Aid Workers Targets

In July, it was revealed that while trying to track down Osama bin Laden the CIA set up a phony vaccination program to collect children’s DNA. Afterwards, real aid agencies reported that they were facing restrictions on movement inside Pakistan.

And it just keeps getting worse. With US-Pakistan relations near a breaking point and concerns of CIA operatives everywhere, the Save the Children group announced it was forced to evacuate several members of its staff.

The concern wasn’t just that they were being restricted from humanitarian operations, but that the CIA scheme had implicated their program as well, and they were concerned the Pakistani military spy agency would arrest them.

Save the Children insists they had no idea about the CIA’s scheme, which apparently used the organization’s name as cover to set up shop in Abbottabad. The doctor at the heart of the CIA’s phony program also attended Save the Children training sessions previously.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.