ISIS have claimed responsibility for an apparent suicide attack during the recent filming of an episode of the BBC’s Robot Wars. According to eyewitnesses one of the robots involved in the climactic melee suddenly exploded. “It was utter carnage – there were massive casualties,” Maurice Keppler, who had been in the audience, told the Daily Norks. “There were bits of robots strewn all over the arena – saw blades, caterpillar tracks, pieces of circuit board all over the place.” A police spokesperson later confirmed that none of the robots in the arena at the time of the explosion survived. There were, however, no human casualties, although several hundred geeks who had been watching the recording were highly traumatised by the demise of so many robots, with scores being treated for shock in local hospitals. Whilst initial reports claimed that the explosion was accidental, Keppler is adamant that it was a deliberate act on the part of the robot’s operators, who were described by observers as ‘looking a bit Arabic’. “It was clearly designed to do maximum damage,” he declared. “They deliberately played ‘lame’, giving the impression that the machine was defective and waited for all the other robots to converge on it before detonating the bomb it was carrying!”

Keppler and several other witnesses have also claimed that they distinctly heard the robot blare out the words ‘Allahu Akbar’ in a metallic voice just before it exploded. The BBC, however, after an analysis of the programme’s soundtrack, have claimed that the sound heard was actually the screeching of the machine’s gears as it tried to escape the attentions of the rival robots. “We’re still very much of the opinion that this was simply an accident,” one of the programme’s producers, Alfie Doppler told the Daily Excess. “The explosion was most likely caused by a defective battery. I mean, why would Islamic terrorists target a TV show about nerd-built robots destroying each other?” Nevertheless, whilst pointing out that the robot’s builders and operators – who are currently in police custody – were actually a trio of Indian engineering students studying in London, Doppler does concede that the BBC’s suspicions should, perhaps, have been aroused by their original choice of name for their machine. “I was somewhat surprised when they initially wanted to call it ‘Robojihadi’, as I was sure that they were Hindus,” he said. “Feeling that might be a bit provocative, we eventually settled on ‘Mecha Mecca’, instead.”

Doppler has also dismissed ISIS’ claiming of responsibility for the alleged ‘robo-suicide bombing’. “Those guys claim responsibility for everything,” he points out. “If a vaguely Arabic-looking guy broke wind in a crowded hotel lift, they’d claim responsibility for launching a chemical attack against the West!” Nonetheless, there are fears that the Robot Wars incident could mark the opening of a dangerous new front in ISIS’ terror campaign. “Believe me, ‘Techno Terror’ is going to be focus of radical Islam’s attacks in future,” terrorism expert and right-wing commentator Tom Newton has claimed in his latest You Tube video. “Their plan is to strike at us in our homes, via the electrical appliances they take as symbols of our western decadence.” According to Newton’s thesis, ISIS has spent months recruiting and radicalising electrical appliances and computer repair men throughout Europe, with a view to using them to reprogramme household devices into killing machines. “It’s already started,” he declared in the video, which has so far clocked up tens of views. “Just look at that business in Nice when that lorry ploughed into those crowds of pedestrians – the driver was an entirely innocent party! The truck’s electronic management system had been reprogrammed by a Muslim mechanic during its last service, so as to run out of control and kill pedestrians. The poor bastard behind the wheel was actually trying to shoot the dashboard and stop the lorry when he was killed by the police, who assumed that he was shooting at them!”

One of Newton’s You Tube followers has already claimed to have been the victim of a ‘Techno Terror’ attack. “There is no doubt in my mind that, last week, my washing machine twice attempted to assassinate me,” Mrs Sally Wheatstone told viewers of her own You Tube video. “Last Tuesday I put a load in it as usual and left it running in the kitchen. I was watching ‘Homes Under the Hammer’ on the telly in the living room, when I suddenly heard this incredible racket coming from the kitchen.” Going into the kitchen to investigate, the Totnes housewife was amazed to see her washing machine vibrating violently as it entered its spin cycle. “It was rocking back and forth, damaging the units on either side of it,” she recalled. “Then, as I watched, it lurched out into the middle of the kitchen and began to advance toward me!” She tried to run from the berserk appliance, but proved to be too quick for her. “Before I knew it, it had me trapped against the wall and was clearly trying to crush me to death,” Wheatstone claims. “Luckily, just as it was forcing the breath out of me, it reached the limit of its power cord and pulled its own plug out of the electricity socket, brining itself to a halt!”

Wheatstone admits that, initially, she put the washing machine’s homicidal behaviour down to over loading and pushed it back into position in order to continue using it. “Then, when I did the next big load, last Friday, it made another attempt on my life,” she says. “This time, when I walked into the kitchen, I found the machine was flooding the room – the whole floor was covered in water, When I went to switch it off, I received an almighty electric shock, which threw me across the kitchen! I was lucky to survive!” Following this incident, Wheatstone recalled that the engineer who had serviced the washing machine a few days before the first incident had been decidedly ‘foreign looking’. “He was very swarthy and had a huge beard,” she told viewers of her video. “He definitely spoke with an accent – Birmingham, I think. They’re all Islamic terrorists there, aren’t they?” Her claims have been dismissed as ‘utter nonsense’ bt the The Sleaze’s own terrorism expert, Professor Bob Mincer of the East Midlands International School of Tapestry Studies. “The idea of murderous household appliances is ludicrous – what next, vacuum cleaners killing their owners by shoving their nozzles up their arseholes and sucking their innards out?” he opined from his stool at the bar of a Nottingham pub. “These stories are just a variation on that bollocks from a few years ago about Al Qeaeda training monkeys to use guns and shoot tourists! It’s quite obvious that bloody woman simply had a poorly maintained and overloaded washing machine! Now, whose round is it?”