CIA chief’s team member on India trip claims to be hit by mystery illness

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 21

The US media has reported a Havana syndrome like symptoms to a member of CIA chief Bill Burns’s delegation that visited India last month.

This is the second time in a month that an entourage of senior Biden administration officials on an overseas visit has reported such a symptom. Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Vietnam was slightly delayed after several staffers reported similar symptoms.

Havana syndrome was first alleged in 2016 by US and Canadian embassy staff in Cuba. Said to cause pain in the head, reports have suggested some kind of neurological attack by unnamed adversaries that seems to largely affect US diplomats. Similar incidents have been reported from the US itself as well as Austria, Germany and China.

In the latest case, a member of Burns’ delegation reported a similar thing and had to be given medical attention during his visit to India this month. From there, the team travelled to Pakistan.

The visit by Burns to meet NSA Ajit Doval after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban was closely guarded and neither side put out any statement on the interaction.

There was no official US comment to the reports in the US media. “We don’t comment on specific incidents or officers. We have protocols in place for when individuals report possible anomalous health incidents that include receiving appropriate medical treatment. We will keep doing everything we can to protect our officers,” a CIA spokesperson said.

Studies of the diplomats in Cuba who were first hit by the problem had found evidence of some form of brain injury but did not determine the cause, according to a study published in the journal JAMA.