Cry Havoc and unleash the......

Camels of War? Really? In 2007? You betcha!

Hang in there because it's pretty confusing (full story here).

Last week the head of the UN department of peacekeeping operations, said they may fail to protect civilians in Darfur without the required air mobility and firepower.

The United States also said it was "deeply troubled" by the government of Sudan's "foot-dragging and obstruction" on the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.

But diplomats say several Western countries able to provide hardware such as helicopters are reluctant to do so because of a lack of confidence in the command and control structure for the joint force.

However, all their worries are over now because they have the magnificent fighting camels of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF), right? Well not so fast.

"In principle the BSF has agreed to the request and will wait for the UN to approach it through the ministry of home affairs," said the chief of India's elite 200,000-member frontier force, A. K. Mitra.


Oh no, agreement in principle? I'm pretty sure that means no agreement at all.

The BSF in India also warned that any deployment of trained camels to transport foot soldiers in Darfur may be some time away.

"All our camels are engaged in border-guarding duties and this whole process could take a long time," said BSF spokesman Vijay Singh, adding the agency could currently spare up to 60 of its 700-plus battle-ready animals for Sudan.

Lol, I got your camels right here, Darfur! Oh and what makes a camel battle ready you ask?

The camels conscripted into the BSF are trained not to react to gunfire and are taught to crawl and follow other "soldierly movements".

I am not sure which is funnier, "conscripted" or "other soldierly movements". All I can say is thanks very much to Pratap Chakravarty.