# The mosquito cloud > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The mosquito cloud," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-mosquito-cloud/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The night John Kiriakou waited beside Abu Zubaydah's hospital bed in Faisalabad in a room full of mosquitoes, having stopped taking his anti-malarial because of the nightmares — and turned the ceiling fan to full blast in a cold March room until an FBI agent asked what he was doing.* - **Where:** The hospital where Abu Zubaydah was operated on, Pakistan - **When:** March, after the capture - **Why he was unprotected:** Stopped taking chloroquine over nightmares - **His remedy:** Ceiling fan on full blast - **The cost:** Freezing in a cold room - **What he told the FBI agent:** He would rather freeze than be bitten The **mosquito cloud** is the detail [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) returns to when describing the night he spent at [Abu Zubaydah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah)'s bedside, waiting for him to come out of surgery after the capture. ## The phobia Kiriakou has described the fear as long-standing and disproportionate. Discussing his astrophotography in 2025, he mentioned that *"for people who know me personally, they know that I have an utterly irrational fear of mosquitoes"*, which makes sitting outside for two hours at a telescope difficult — *"I freaking hate it. But, you know, we all have our cross to bear."*[1] In an earlier account: *"I have a thing about mosquitoes my wife laughs about me but I consider myself to be a pretty tough guy but I'm freaked out at the thought of something drinking my blood it just is from when I was a little kid it's always bothered me."*[2] ## Why he was unprotected That association carried him into the hospital story. *"There were mosquitoes all over the hospital and I I was freaked out by them because I couldn't take the chloricquin because um it gave me such terrible nightmares. So, I just stopped taking the chloricquin, which prevents malaria once the malarial mosquito bites you. So, I'm just taking my my chances with the mosquito."*[3] (The auto-caption renders the drug as *chloricquin*; the reference is to chloroquine.) ## The room *"I go into Abu Zubeda's room to wait for him to come out of surgery and it's like a cloud of mosquitoes in there. I'm like, great."*[3] His earlier telling gives the reason they were concentrated there — *"swarms of mosquitoes are just feeding on people's open wounds"* — in a facility where a bar of Irish Springs soap with a dozen syringes stuck into it served as the sterile store.[4] He has said elsewhere that he turned the ceiling fan on full blast *"to blow the mosquitoes away from his wounds and frankly to keep them off myself."*[2] ## The FBI agent The consequence was cold. *"So, I put the ceiling fan on high blast and this was March. It was a little bit cold, you know? So, I'm sitting there like this. I'm freezing and this FBI agent comes in. He goes, 'Dude, it's freezing in here. What are you doing?' I said, 'I would rather freeze to death than be bitten by a Pakistani mosquito.'"*[5] Told in 2025 that mosquitoes will not fly above a certain temperature, and that the night ahead would be in the high fifties, Kiriakou said he had not known that, and thanked his host.[5][6] ## See also - [Abu Zubaydah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah) - [Pakistan Station (2002)](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/pakistan-station-2002) - [The desert sunset photograph](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-desert-sunset-photograph) ## Sources 1. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “France In Crisis” (2025-09-08), at 1:13:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDOspNoh9IA&t=4421s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-08-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-fra/ 2. John Kiriakou, CIA whistle blower part 1 (2016-04-25), at 21:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCAYwyiEbY8&t=1297s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2016-04-25-fort-collins-community-act-john-kiriakou-cia-whistle-blower-part-1/ 3. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “France In Crisis” (2025-09-08), at 1:14:13. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDOspNoh9IA&t=4453s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-08-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-fra/ 4. John Kiriakou Addresses the 2016 NHLA Liberty Dinner (2016-07-11), at 08:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Un-IY3vlc&t=481s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2016-07-11-adventures-in-the-free-sta/ 5. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “France In Crisis” (2025-09-08), at 1:14:43. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDOspNoh9IA&t=4483s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-08-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-fra/ 6. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “France In Crisis” (2025-09-08), at 1:15:14. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDOspNoh9IA&t=4514s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-08-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-fra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-mosquito-cloud/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt