Iraqi militia meet ferocious threat
When a pickup truck drives up to a checkpoint with a lion in the back, soldiers take a break from duties to snap photos
For Iraqi militiamen manning a checkpoint near the front lines of the battle with Islamic State, the lion’s share of their time must be spent in fluctuation between tense watchfulness and infinite tedium.
However, some of it is also apparently shared with actual lions.
A video posted to the internet earlier this week and made available here by the Middle East Media Research Institute appears to show men from the pro-government Saraya Al-Salam militia briefly stop a pickup truck carrying a lion. In the video there are no visible constraints on the dangerous animal, and he appears to simply stand there calmly and indifferently as the soldiers mill around him, taking pictures of themselves by his side.
The pick up truck is then seen driving away, the lion still standing calmly in the back.
It was not clear where the lion was coming from or where it was being taken, never mind the reason. It did, however, seem to cheer up the militia men considerably for a few minutes.
In Iraq these days, that is no small feat.