'Fake vaccines' in Bin Laden hunt

12 July 2011 Last updated at 15:18 GMT Bin Laden was top of the US 'most wanted' list The CIA ran a fake vaccine programme in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad to try to get a DNA sample from the family of Osama Bin Laden, media reports say.

The Guardian newspaper says CIA agents recruited a Pakistani doctor there to organise the vaccination drive. The paper says he has since been arrested.

The CIA has refused to comment on the report, which comes as tensions run high between Islamabad and Washington.

The al-Qaeda chief was killed in a US commando raid on his compound on 2 May.

Relations between Pakistan and the US have plummeted since the raid with many in the US questioning how the fugitive could live undetected for years in a Pakistani cantonment town so close to the capital.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden, CIA agents recruited senior Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad where it believed he was hiding, said the Guardian report.

'DNA search'

The newspaper says "it is not known whether the CIA managed to obtain any Bin Laden DNA, although one source suggested the operation did not succeed".

The BBC's Urdu service also spoke to an unnamed source in the Pakistan military, who said that a health official who administered polio drops to children within Bin Laden's compound was arrested shortly after the 2 May raid.

BBC Urdu said the military source quoted the health official as saying that a number of children were called in from the inner quarters of the compound to be given the drops.

The official also told investigators that the children spoke fluent Pashto, as did the woman who brought them from inside, although he said he could not see the woman's face as she was veiled.

The source said the official is still in custody, but he is not suspected of having collaborated with the American secret agents.

The BBC has also learned that the doctor, named by The Guardian as Shakil Afridi, employed two health workers to assist in the scheme and one of them did manage to enter the Bin Laden compound - that person remains untraceable and it is unclear if they managed to get DNA samples.

There has been no official comment on the report from the Pakistani authorities.

Courier trail

The "project" was started in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, the paper said.

According to the report, the CIA launched the campaign after it tracked down a Bin Laden courier to the compound in the town of Abbottabad.

Before launching an operation on the compound, US officials wanted to match DNA samples from people living in the compound with a sample they had from his sister, the report said.

Separately, the New York Times also cited an unnamed US official who said that a vaccination programme was set up as a ruse in the town, because the CIA was struggling to learn whether Bin Laden was truly hiding in the compound.

At the time of the raid on Bin Laden's compound, a shopkeeper close to the fortress told the BBC's M Ilyas Khan that a vaccination team had visited the area just a week or two earlier.

He had said that they were only vaccinating Afghan nationals living in the area and were also obtaining their blood samples for what they described as tests to identify certain diseases.

Three of Bin Laden's wives and several children were detained after the raid on the compound near Islamabad.

The family are said to have provided vital information about the al-Qaeda leader's activities and are among the main witnesses of the covert US operation that killed him.

Bin Laden orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in which nearly 3,000 people died.

He evaded US forces and their allies for almost a decade, despite a $25m (?15m) bounty on his head.

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Bin Laden family 'must stay in Pakistan'

6 July 2011 Last updated at 10:48 GMT Bin Laden was top of the US "most wanted" list A Pakistani commission investigating the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden has said the government should not allow his family to leave the country.

Three of Bin Laden's wives and several children were detained after the 2 May raid on a compound near Islamabad.

The commission is investigating how the al-Qaeda leader hid in the Abbottabad compound for nearly five years. It held its first meeting on Tuesday.

It is not clear whether the authorities will heed the commission's demand.

Bin Laden, 54, orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in which nearly 3,000 people died.

He evaded the forces of the US and its allies for almost a decade, despite a $25m (?15m) bounty on his head.

Infuriated

The family are said to have provided vital information about the al-Qaeda leader's activities and are among the main witnesses of the covert US operation that killed him.

Officials say that Bin Laden's presence for so long in Abbottabad was an embarrassment

The BBC's Shahzeb Jillani says that their testimony is considered crucial for the commission's efforts to investigate Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan and the circumstances surrounding the US raid.

The commission, headed by a senior judge of the Supreme Court, has ordered the interior ministry and the main intelligence agency, the ISI, to make sure that Bin Laden's family does not leave the country without its permission.

Our correspondent says that the US raid infuriated many Pakistanis and prompted suspicions that the al-Qaeda leader could not have been hiding in Abbottabad for nearly five years without the knowledge of the country's armed forces.

Pakistani officials have since called it one of their biggest intelligence failures.

Many in Pakistan are now hoping that the commission - whose meetings are not open to the public - will come up with some real answers.

A statement issued by the commission promised a thorough investigation and said it would summon senior civilian and military leaders to attend proceedings if necessary.

"Their identity will be kept confidential and they will also be legally protected," Associated Press quoted the statement as saying.

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Diver to hunt for Bin Laden body

14 June 2011 Last updated at 18:11 GMT Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan last month A US salvage diver says he will scour the bottom of the north Arabian Sea to hunt for the body of Osama Bin Laden.

Bill Warren says that he wants to establish once and for all whether the al-Qaeda leader was killed by US forces in May, and then buried out at sea.

Mr Warren, 59, says his search will begin in about four weeks time, and will cost around $400,000 (?245,000).

He admits it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but maintains it is not an impossible mission.

Deep-sea search

Mr Warren, who runs a California-based salvage company and has worked on 200 ship wrecks, told the BBC he had "some doubts" as to whether Osama Bin Laden was dead because the US government had not showed any images of the body.

Should he succeed in his mission, he says, he will photograph and video the corpse, and also take a sample of hair - either from Bin Laden's head or his beard - for verification purposes.

Mr Warren admitted the chances of success were slim, but said modern equipment could scan large areas of the sea floor.

"I've done side scan sonar in 10,000 feet (3,000m) of water and spotted a toilet, a tyre, a coffee cup - you can actually see the ripples on the sand."

Mr Warren says his search will begin in the shallow waters off Pakistan. If that proves fruitless, then he will move to a deep water search.

He says he is hoping for a tip-off on the approximate location that the body was thrown overboard.

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