War isn't supposed to be humorous.  Nevertheless, it sometimes provides moments of high hilarity.  Such was the case yesterday in Iraq, when an ISIS position there was overrun by a herd of rampaging wild boars.  Given all the exotic fauna that have been wiped out there – during Babylonian times, the place was inhabited by lions – who would have thought that wild boars still abounded there?  But apparently, so they do.

From the USA Today article of April 25, 2017, the following appears:

Three Islamic State militants setting up an ambush in a bitterly contested area of northern Iraq were killed by a herd of stampeding boars, local leaders say.

Sheikh Anwar al-Assi, a chief of the local Ubaid tribe and supervisor of anti-ISIS forces, told The Times of London the militants were hiding on the edge of a field about 50 miles southwest of Kirkuk when the boars overwhelmed them Sunday. Five other militants were injured, al-Assi said. He said the group was poised to attack a band of local tribesmen who had fled to nearby mountains since militants seized the town of Hawija three years ago.

"It is likely their movement disturbed a herd of wild pigs, which inhabit the area as well as the nearby cornfields," he said.

Al-Assi said the militants had summarily executed 25 people attempting to flee the militant's would-be caliphate in the three days before the boars attacked. Hawija, about 100 miles south of Mosul, sees dozens of residents flee to Kurdish Kirkuk daily, and the Iraqi military has planned to launch an offensive in the region after a laborious effort to liberate Mosul is completed.

"We know that a massacre took place in Hawija district through our sources," al-Assi told the Times. "This will not be ISIS's last massacre against citizens."

Now, I got me a few questions about this "incident."

- Are the killed jihadis martyrs?  Are they eligible for the 72 virgins?  To be sure, they were killed while on "active duty," so they ought to qualify.  But on the other hand, not only were they not killed by the "infidels," but they were killed by that most un-Islamic of "unclean" animals, the pig.  So does this qualify as combat, or is it like being caught under a falling tree?

- Who's going to bury the jihadis, who, after all, were "contaminated" by the "unclean" pigs that killed them?  Other jihadis?  But won't that "contaminate" them, too?  Christians or Yazidis could be commandeered to do the work, but haven't they all been killed or driven off?

- Did the wild boars eat the jihadis, like in the Hannibal Lecter movie?  And if so, then on Judgment Day, will Allah even want to bring them back to life?  And if he does, then won't he be forced to use their mortal remnants – which by that time will be pig manure?

- And what will the virgins say, when the killed jihadis will want to pleasure themselves with the virgins but will first have to tell the virgins that the jihadis were killed by pigs?  Will the virgins be shocked?  Horrified?  Me, I think they'll laugh their sweet little backsides right off.

All day long, questions, questions.

The author is an Iowa truck driver known to some AT readers as AtomicIgor.