British Blamed for Mysterious Beast of Basra

The Times Online (UK) ^ | July 11, 2007 | Philippe Naughton

[Cecily]

British forces operating around the southern Iraqi city of Basra are being blamed for the arrival of a plague of vicious badgers that stalk the streets at night, attacking livestock and even humans.

Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans and was, according to the local rumour mill, released into the area by UK forces to spread panic.

Major David Gell, a British Army spokesman, said the animals were thought to be a kind of honey badger or ratel - melivora capensis - which can be fierce but are not usually dangerous to humans unless provoked.

The animals are indigenous to Africa and large parts of the Middle East and are about the same size as European European badgers but much more aggressive, with long claws and strong jaws. They have been described in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most fearless animal.

“They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They’re nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don’t stalk humans and carry them back to their lair,” Major Gell said.

Iraqi scientists have attempted to calm the public but the story of the British badgers has spread like wildfire through Basra and the surrounding villages.

Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, director of Basra’s veterinary hospital, has inspected the corpses of several dead badgers and sought to reassure his fellow citizens that they are not new to the region but had been seen well before Saddam's ouster in 2003.

[Cecily]

Badgers running amok.

[JRios1968]

Did you say Badgers???

[Red Badger]

Secret Badger Recon Ranger Division of the British Royal Marines!........

[Jeff Chandler]

rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans

Gotta love those third world morons!

[mnehring]

Badgers, we don’t need no stinking Badgers...

(sorry, someone had to say it..)

[conservativehusker]

Why are we protecting people who are to stupid to live...they actually believe the British did this????????

I thought Iraqies where considered the most educated Middleeasterners!

[randomhero97]

Are these attacks coordinated with the squirrel clandestine operations that are taking place on the Iraq/Iran border?

[commish]

*click* Roger, Operation Chupacabra proceeding as planned. *click*

[thackney]

“Bristish Blamed for Beast of Basra, Badger” Bing

[Red Badger]

Man-Bear-Badger.............

[Hegemony Cricket]

Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist...

[Clara Lou]

My urge is to call them “ignorant barbarians.” Seems to fit.

[commish]

rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans

ManBearPig?

[granite]

Marines: Badgers, we don’t need no stinking badgers...

[PeterPrinciple]

rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans
Gotta love those third world morons!

---

They might think we are morons too with global warming and remember that millennium episode when the world was going to end.?

[stanz]

Time to call up a badger fatwa. Death to the satanic mammals.

[txhurl]

Wait’ll they see the Raptors I got cookin’ to send over there.

[AngryJawa]

Gotta love those third world morons!

Not that I disagree, but it's not like the UK doesn't have a living prehistoric creature frolicking about in one of its Lochs. 8^)

[Daus]

[mutley]

remember that millennium episode when the world was going to end.?

No, I don't remember that. What happened?