The man eating Badgers of Basra

Basra-The body had lain by the side of the pock marked main road for at least three days. Life continued on for in Basra random bodies are a fact of life, merely a nuisance to be stepped around. It was only a week after the local authorities got round to collecting the sun bloated remains that they noticed something rather unusual.
The body did not as expected contain a bullet or indeed a mass of shrapnel as one might expect to find in a victim of western style democracy, but instead bore all the hallmarks of a Badger attack.

For weeks residents of Basra had been complaining of a nocturnal howling and at least three people had contacted local police to report violent incidents involving a Badger like creature.
But police had dismissed the reports as hysterical reactions to the ongoing violence endured by all sections of the now freed from tyranny population.

That was until late last Friday when three men leaving the Mosque after Friday evening prayers were pounced upon by a snarling blood stained badger in full view of over two hundred stunned worshipers.
The men managed to fight off the blood crazed Badger with the help of other believers but were left shocked and bleeding by their black and white encounter.

The story might have stopped there and been filed away along with stories of goat suckers and UFO's had it not been for an eagle eyed Imam, who happened to see the badger make his escape and noticed that a small patch of shaved hair on the badgers behind contained the unmistakable tattoo of a union jack flag.
The Imam immediately called residents to an emergency meeting at the mosque and told angry residents the awful truth that the murderous plagues of badgers were being released by British forces to strike terror into the hearts of a restless population.

This accusation has led to angry mobs descending on the local British outpost for flag burnings and angry chants of "Badgers go home!"
All assurances to local leaders concerning the lack of British involvement in Badger terror has so far failed to assuage the anger felt within the vast Shia community.

As military spokesman Major Mike Shearer told me "We can categorically state that UK forces have not, I repeat have not released man eating badgers into the Basra area."
What makes local people wary of accepting Major Shearer's assurances of a badger free area is the well attested to fact that the British army was known to have used combat badgers during their vicious entanglement in Northern Ireland in the late nineteen eighties.

When I asked Major Shearer about the army's previous use of counter insurgency Badgers he denied all knowledge of a special operations unit involving mans most feared nocturnal enemy.
"Absolutely not, I can assure you Badgers have never been part of Her majesty's armed forces and rumors of a secret Badger warfare division are just that, rumors."

Whether these denials of culpability will soothe the explosive atmosphere in Basra remains to be seen but one thing is for certain, if an another attack occurs British forces will certainly have their hands full.