23 Jul The Return of Secret Squirrel!
In case you haven’t heard the, uh, news, I just wanted to update our post on the alleged man-eating badgers in Basra with the recent Iranian announcement that they have captured squirrels with implanted spy equipment.
The BBC and the Washington Post have picked up the story. The BBC translation of the Iranian story states:
A few weeks ago, 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems of foreign intelligence services were captured by [Iranian] intelligence forces along the country’s borders. These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes. According to the announcement made by Iranian intelligence officials, alert police officials caught these squirrels before they could carry out any task.
Fixing GPS devices, bugging instruments and advanced cameras in the bodies of trained animals like squirrels, mice, hamsters, etc, are among modern methods of collecting intelligence. Given the fast speed and the special physical features of these animals, they provide special capabilities for spying operations. Once the animals return to their place of origin, the intelligence gathered by them is then offloaded. . . .
Wow, now that is irregular warfare.
Hat tips: Small Wars Journal and Futurismic.
Chris,
I cannot say enough good things about your recent allusions to Secret Squirrel and Super Friends. As to these squirrels, I am genuinely curious and concerned about how it was determined that they were trained and their “special physical features” ascertained . . . since I imagine measures might be taken with squirrels that could not be regarded as “inhuman treatment,” at least.
As to irregularity, well, I remember bat bombs and pigeon-guided missiles, and it turns out that there is a proud history of such things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_animals. A new convention may be in order.
Thanks, Ed. I think there’s a law review article in here on international law/ Saturday morning cartoon cross-overs. Anyway, the part that I loved about the Iranian news agency report was that “alert police officials caught these squirrels before they could carry out any task.”
First, let us note that Iran must have incredibly alert police officers in order to notice 14 squirrels that have embedded GPS systems and, second, just how did they find out from the squirrels that they had not carried out any of their tasks?
Between the murderous badgers and the spy squirrels, I think its time to go watch The Day of the Dolphin again and then write that convention.