Ferocious Man-Eating Badgers

So, did you hear about this? I heard it yesterday on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and laughed histerically at it. Read the whole story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6295138.stm.

British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.

Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.

The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

"It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey" Housewife Suad Hassan.

But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers.

The director of Basra's veterinary hospital, Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, has inspected several of the animals' corpses.
He told the AFP news agency: "These appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known locally as Al-Girta. "Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific."