Wild boars have joined the war against ISIS

Stand aside ‘the military’, because we’ve got some serious animals on our side in the fight against ISIS.

Three Islamic State militants have been killed by rampaging wild boar in northern Iraq, according to local sources.

Five more are believed to have been injured while they prepared an ambush against anti-ISIS brigades in a reedbed in the Hamrin mountains near Kirkuk.

The story only has one source, a grateful local tribal chief quoted in The Times whose own forces benefited from the porcine intervention. He said: “It is likely their movement disturbed a herd of wild pigs, which inhabit the area as well as the nearby cornfields. The area is dense with reeds, which are good for hiding in.”

If the story does turn out to be true, it’s a kind of karmic justice, as it happened shortly after the same militants executed 25 people in the ISIS-controlled town of Hawija because some of its residents were caught trying to escape. Sadly for the boars, subsequent reports have suggested that other ISIS members carried out revenge attacks on the poor animals. 

Wild boars can be found the world over, and while big, strong and perfectly capable of killing humans if they wish, tend to be scared of us and usually run away rather than attack. Groups of boar are usually only dangerous if you continue to threaten them, or if they have small piglets with them. 

That said, there are herds of radioactive boar at large both in Japan and central Europe. They’ve been irradiated by eating plants contaminated by the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters, forcing the authorities to send teams of hunters out to try and battle exploding populations.

(Image: Winfried Schafer/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock)