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Vaccine Aide Gunned Down In Pakistan | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A health worker supervising a polio vaccination campaign was fatally shot and two others were wounded on Saturday when gunmen opened fire at a hospital in northwestern Pakistan, officials said. | |
No one immediately took responsibility for the killing, but the Taliban, which accuses the United States of using a drive to eradicate polio in the country as a cover for spying, has threatened the lives of health workers who immunize children. | No one immediately took responsibility for the killing, but the Taliban, which accuses the United States of using a drive to eradicate polio in the country as a cover for spying, has threatened the lives of health workers who immunize children. |
Pakistani officials said two gunmen riding a motorbike had opened fire at a government hospital in Matni, a suburb of Peshawar, the provincial capital of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. Zahid Gul, who was overseeing the vaccination campaign, was killed and another man and a woman were wounded in the attack. The gunmen fled. | |
Saturday’s episode was a particular setback to the former cricket star and current opposition leader Imran Khan, whose political party controls Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. | |
Mr. Khan this month condemned the attacks on health workers taking part in vaccination efforts. He said that he would personally lead the anti-polio drive and warned that the country risked being quarantined internationally if the attacks continued. Pakistan is one of only a few countries where the polio virus is still rampant. | Mr. Khan this month condemned the attacks on health workers taking part in vaccination efforts. He said that he would personally lead the anti-polio drive and warned that the country risked being quarantined internationally if the attacks continued. Pakistan is one of only a few countries where the polio virus is still rampant. |
Mr. Khan has supported peace talks with Taliban militants and opposes the Pakistani military’s operations against them in the semiautonomous tribal regions adjoining Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. He also vehemently opposes drone strikes by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and says civilian casualties from the missile strikes fuel more militancy, instead of curbing it. | |
The Taliban’s resistance to polio vaccination hardened after the raid in May 2011 on Osama bin Laden’s compound in northern Pakistan, as revelations surfaced that the C.I.A. had used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to run a vaccination campaign that aided efforts to locate Bin Laden. | |
Since then, the Taliban has repeatedly targeted the vaccination campaign. |