Pakistan police officers found dead

Bodies of 21 abducted security force officers foundRaids occurred outside Peshawar on Thursday, a government official saysScores of suspected Taliban members descended on two base camps

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The bodies of 21 Pakistani tribal police officers were found Saturday night, two days after they were abducted during a raid linked to the Taliban, a senior government official said.

Militants killed two security forces and captured 23 officers during an assault on two military posts Thursday, said Naveed Akbar, the official in Peshawar.

The 21 victims, shot to death, were found in a mountainous area known as Kohi Hassakhel, Akbar told CNN. An injured soldier managed to escape, while another was missing.

More than 200 people suspected to be members of the Pakistan Taliban conducted the actions, said Akbar.

The checkpoints are nearly two miles apart on the outskirts of Peshawar. The militants swamped the camps on foot and in vehicles. A gunfight lasting more than an hour ensued.

The Pakistan Taliban confirmed they took the security forces in custody. The personnel belonged to a tribal police force engaged in fighting militants. Officials initially said 21 had been abducted.

The northwestern region of Pakistan -- near the volatile border with Afghanistan -- has a large militant presence, and has been plagued by fighting.

CNN's Shaan Khan contributed to this report.

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Pakistan polio campaign suspended

A Pakistan health worker gives polio drops at a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Karachi on September 29, 2010.Six polio vaccination workers were killed in attacks in Pakistan since MondayA Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan banned polio vaccinesPakistan is one of 3 countries where polio remains endemic, WHO says WHO estimates 280,000 children living in the northwest tribal area need of polio vaccine

Islamabad (CNN) -- A campaign to eradicate polio from the northwest tribal region of Pakistan is on hold after fatal attacks on health workers vaccinating children, the Balochistan government said Tuesday.

Six polio vaccination workers were killed in attacks in Pakistan since Monday, the World Health Organization and Pakistani police told CNN Tuesday.

Another attack last July wounded a WHO doctor and his driver while they worked on the polio campaign in Karachi.

Read more: At the U.N., a vow to eradicate polio by 2015

The motive for the attacks was unclear. However, Pakistanis have viewed polio vaccination campaigns with suspicion after 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.

In June, a Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan announced a ban on polio vaccines for children in the region as long as the United States continues its campaign of drone strikes in the region, the Taliban said.

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Read more: WHO doctor attacked during Pakistan polio campaign

The vaccination campaign has been suspended indefinitely in Quetta, Killa Abdullah and Pishin districts, Balochistan government spokesman Noor ul Haq Baloch said. "The reason behind suspension of the campaign is the security threat to workers," Baloch said.

"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 WHO statement said. "Those killed were among thousands who work selflessly across Pakistan to eradicate polio."

WHO earlier estimated that 280,000 children living in the tribal area were in need of polio vaccinations.

Read more: Taliban's vaccine ban may affect 280,000 children

"Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that can cause permanent paralysis in a matter of hours," WHO said. "Safe and effective vaccines protect children from the disease. Currently the disease remains endemic in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan."

Health officials confirmed four cases of polio in Balochistan in 2012, while 11 cases of polio 2 virus were reported there, Baloch said. There were 73 cases of polio virus in 2011, he said.

Four female health workers were shot to death in Karachi Tuesday morning, including two women killed after administering the vaccination to children, according to Naeem Shah, a senior police official.

Two other women were shot while going house to house giving vaccinations in Peshawar, police official Javed Khan said. Gunmen opened fire on the women as they left a house where they had vaccinated children, he said.

Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf ordered his interior ministry to work with the polio eradication project to "provide foolproof security to the polio teams."

CNN's Nasir Habib in Islamabad contributed to this report.

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Attackers in Pakistan Kill Anti-Polio Workers

“It is a blow, no doubt,” said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, an adviser on polio to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. “Never before have female health workers been targeted like this in Pakistan. Clearly there will have to be more and better arrangements for security.”

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but most suspicion focused on the Pakistani Taliban, which has previously blocked polio vaccinators and complained that the United States is using the program as a cover for espionage.

The killings were a serious reversal for the multibillion-dollar global polio immunization effort, which over the past quarter century has reduced the number of endemic countries from 120 to just three: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Nonetheless, United Nations officials insisted that the drive would be revived after a period for investigation and regrouping, as it had been after previous attacks on vaccinators here, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Pakistan has made solid gains against polio, with 56 new recorded cases of the diseases in 2012, compared with 192 at the same point last year, according to the government. Worldwide, cases of death and paralysis from polio have been reduced to less than 1,000 last year, from 350,000 worldwide in 1988.

But the campaign here has been deeply shaken by Taliban threats and intimidation, though several officials said Tuesday that they had never seen such a focused and deadly attack before.

Insurgents have long been suspicious of polio vaccinators, seeing them as potential spies. But that greatly intensified after the C.I.A. used a vaccination team headed by a local doctor, Shakil Afridi, to visit Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, reportedly in an attempt to obtain DNA proof that the Bin Laden family was there before an American commando raid attacked it in May 2011.

In North Waziristan, one prominent warlord has banned polio vaccinations until the United States ceases drone strikes in the area.

Most new infections in Pakistan occur in the tribal belt and adjoining Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province — some of the most remote areas of the country, and also those with the strongest militant presence. People fleeing fighting in those areas have also spread the disease to Karachi, the country’s largest city, where the disease has been making a worrisome comeback in recent years.

After Tuesday’s attacks, witnesses described violence that was both disciplined and well coordinated. Five attacks occurred within an hour in different Karachi neighborhoods. In several cases, the killers traveled in pairs on motorcycle, opening fire on female health workers as they administered polio drops or moved between houses in crowded neighborhoods.

Of the five victims, three were teenagers, and some had been shot in the head, a senior government official said. Two male health workers were also wounded by gunfire; early reports incorrectly stated that one of them had died, the official said.

In Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, gunmen opened fire on two sisters participating in the polio vaccination program, killing one of them. It was unclear whether that shooting was directly linked to the Karachi attacks.

In remote parts of the northwest, the Taliban threat is exacerbated by the government’s crumbling writ. In Bannu, on the edge of the tribal belt, one polio worker, Noor Khan, said he quit work on Tuesday once news of the attacks in Karachi and Peshawar filtered in. “We were told to stop immediately,” he said by phone.

Still, the Pakistani government has engaged considerable political and financial capital in fighting polio. President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa have been at the forefront of immunization drives. With the help of international donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they have mounted a huge vaccination campaign aimed at up to 35 million children younger than 5, usually in three-day bursts that can involve 225,000 health workers.

The plan seeks to have every child in Pakistan immunized at least four times per year, although in the hardest-hit areas one child could be reached as many as 12 times in a year.

Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Zia ur-Rehman from Karachi, Pakistan.

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