boxing day 2012: Taliban shoot dead MORE polio aid workers in 'revenge campaign' for fake vaccination ruse that helped capture Osama bin Laden

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Taliban shoot dead MORE polio aid workers in 'revenge campaign' for fake vaccination ruse that helped capture Osama bin Laden

Horror killings follow earlier murders of five women across country

Aid workers were giving polio jabs as part of 3-day vaccination drive

Taliban claim the campaign to immunise children is a cover for U.S. spies

PUBLISHED: 05:48 EST, 19 December 2012 | UPDATED: 10:19 EST, 19 December 2012

Gunmen in north-western Pakistan shot dead three more aid workers running a U.N.-backed polio vaccination campaign just a day after similar attacks across the country killed five female polio workers.

The unprecedented killings are a major setback for a campaign that international health officials consider vital to contain the crippling disease but which Taliban insurgents say is a cover for espionage.

In today's attacks, a woman and her driver were gunned down in their car in the north-western town of Charsadda.

Two men then opened fire on an 18-year-old worker as he was vaccinating children on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar.

A polio vaccination worker is brought to a local hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, after armed men opened fire on him

Pakistani polio vaccination workers shout slogans against the killing of their colleagues during a protest in Islamabad

Rescue workers move the bodies of two of the polio vaccination workers to a mortuary after four of the aid workers were killed in Karachi, Pakistan

Attack: Unknown armed men killed four female workers who were on a three-day polio vaccination campaign funded by UNICEF in Karachi

Rukhsana Bibi mourns over the body of her daughter, polio worker Madiha Bibi, at the morgue of local hospital in Karachi

The worker died of bullet wounds to the head, said Dr. Janbaz Afridi, the provincial director of the polio campaign.

Also in Charsadda, two female workers narrowly escaped when some men began shooting at them.

Three other female workers also escaped unhurt when they were shot at in Nowshera district.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic. Militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the vaccine makes children sterile.

The Taliban in the lawless northwestern tribal region also blame the U.S. drone strikes for their opposition to the vaccinations.

On Tuesday, gunmen killed five female polio workers in a spree of attacks in several southern and northwestern cities, prompting authorities to suspend the vaccination campaign in the southern Sindh province.

Polio campaign: Female health workers give polio vaccines to a child during a three-day nationwide vaccination campaign in Peshawar, Pakistan

Rescue workers move the body of one of the Polio vaccination workers to a mortuary

Local religious clerics and pro-Taliban lobby are reportedly trying to convince residents that the U.S.-manufactured polio drops were designed to sterilize Pakistanis and reduce the Muslim population

The victims were shot in the head at close range, two of them as they administered vaccine drops to young children.

Four of the women were gunned down in the southern city of Karachi, and the fifth in a village outside the north-west city of Peshawar. A man working on the anti-polio campaign was also shot dead down in Karachi.

The Taliban also killed three soldiers in an ambush of an army convoy escorting a vaccination team in the north-west.

Rukhsana Bibi, center, is supported by a friend after visiting the body of her daughter, polio worker Madiha Bibi

Pakistani relatives transport the dead body of a female polio worker who was killed by gunmen at a local hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan

Conflict: The Taliban argues that the polio drive was just a cover for U.S. spies

The attacks in Karachi were coordinated and occurred within 15 minutes in three different areas of the city that are far apart. In each case, the gunmen used 9mm pistols. Two of the women were 18 and 19, and the other two were in their 40s, he said.

The three-day campaign, which started on Monday, continued in the northwest and elsewhere in the country.

Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attacks on Tuesday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's killings.

Heartbroken: Family members of Nasima Bibi, a female worker of an anti-polio drive campaign who was shot by gunmen, mourn her death at a hospital morgue in Karachi

Amtiaz Khan, centre, brother of Nasima Bibi, comforts other relatives next to Nasima's covered body at a hospital morgue in Karachi

The motive for the attacks is unclear but Pakistanis have viewed polio vaccination campaigns with suspicion since the death of Osama bin Laden.

The CIA's use of a fake vaccination program last year to collect DNA samples from residents of Osama bin Laden's compound to verify the al Qaeda leader's presence there. Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011.

Following the shootings the vaccination campaign has been suspended indefinitely in the north-west tribal region of Pakistan - Quetta, Killa Abdullah and Pishin districts.

Government spokesman Noor ul Haq Baloch said. 'The reason behind suspension of the campaign is the security threat to workers.'

'At least six people working on a polio vaccination campaign have been reported shot dead in several locations in Pakistan -- Gadap, Landi, Baldia and Orangi towns of Karachi city, Sindh Province and Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province,' a statement from the World Health Organisation said.

'Those killed were among thousands who work selflessly across Pakistan to eradicate polio.'

There an estimated 280,000 children living in the tribal area were in need of polio vaccinations.