"We have not released man-eating badgers into the area"

The British are being blamed for releasing a horde of man-eating badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra. Badger is the common name for three subfamilies of the family Mustelidae. The Mustelidae family of mammals includes ferrets, weasels, and the beloved and adorable otter, and several carnivores.

British military spokesmen deny they released a plague of ferocious badgers (duh!). Word spread among the populace that limey troops introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic among "the peasants." Several of the creatures killed by local farmers were identified by experts as honey badgers. . .an indigenous species. As it turns out, the rumours began because the animals appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

The director of Basra's veterinary hospital—Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi—inspected several of the animals' corpses and told a 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." A Brit military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy dean of Basra's veterinary college, speculated that the badgers were being driven towards the city because of flooding in the marshlands north of Basra.
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