Vienna - (Rioters): Proof positive that Austria is arming Iraqi terrorists emerged today after a consignment of 800 Steyr-Mannlicher HS50 sniper rifles exported by Holocaust denier David Irving from his Viennese prison cell last year was found to have reached the Iraqi war torn region hidden in a consignment of beetroots sent initially via Iran's second city Isphahan.
The Pentagon said that this has been a cunning ploy because both Austrians and Iranians are enormously fond of pickles - as anybody who frequents those popular little ethnic Turkish grocers knows - and hiding a large arms cache in a bona fide beetroot-sauerkraut pickling barrel had clearly fooled the CIA into letting the shipment through.
"You go into one of these pseudo-Iranian corner stores and whaddya see?" commented a senior Pentagon intelligence inoperative. "Rows and rows of pickled vegetable jars - chillies, olives, sun-blushed cauliflower florets, hand-rolled pimentos, organic canellini beans, garlic-encrusted eggplant, every conceivable variety of soused gherkin, beetroot, radish and my all time favorite char-grilled capiscum with added fennel seeds, yum.
"But it's all a front. Behind those wholesome rows of export produce lie the sniper rifles, the AK47s, the hand grenades and lethal incendiary devices that Holocaust deniers like Irving have been shipping across Europe in pickle trucks.
"Last week we even found a rocket launcher inside a sack of buckwheat groats and five thousand rounds of ammunition in a cannister of carrots. There's no end to the guile some people will use in the War Against Terra."
Meanwhile a spokesman at the Iranian embassy in Vienna was unrepentant but acknowledged that his bosses had been mystified at first when the arms deal was done and the pickled vegetables turned out to be a take it or leave it deal breaker.
"We were suspicious in the begining because we have our own pickle supplies. But Mr Irving insisted. And because he missed the Holocaust Deniers Conference were were told to treat him delicately.
"But we now think he is nuts. And the pickles suck."
David Irving is out on parole.
