Taleban blamed for new violence in Iraq

Following his comments last week that al-Qaeda agents are active in Iraq, President Bush has now said that Mullah Omar, the leader of Afghanistan's Taleban, has been spotted in Baghdad with a band of Taleban fighters. The allegation comes after a convoy of Toyota pick-ups, Yamaha motorbikes and Arabian horses was tracked making its way through Iran in the direction of Iraq.

CIA spies also reported an increase in the number of large groups of men wearing black turbans lingering on street corners in Baghdad. After close analysis of blurry black and white photos of some of these men, agents were said to be 99 per cent positive that they were veterans of the Afghan War who had most likely shaken Osama Bin Laden's hand at some point.

There are suspicions that the Taleban are attempting to use the vacuum in Iraq to impose strict Muslim Sharia law. This is reinforced by US Army commanders who refuse to believe that they are being humiliated daily by a bunch of teenagers with Kalashnikovs and have assumed that there must be experienced fighters from Afghanistan amongst them directing the action.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense, said: 'It is obvious to any neutral observer that the Taleban are at the heart of the recent violence in Iraq. They are obviously still bitter about gettin' the butts whooped by our boys and now they're taking cheap pot-shots. But we're gonna wipe them out even if that means deploying cluster bombs on neighbourhoods where they may be staying.'

President Bush was said to be determined to take the opportunity to capture Mullah Omar this time instead of letting him escape on a beat-up old motorbike into the desert as he did in Afghanistan.