Retaliation for the recent US bombing and subsequent occupation of Smurfland, which left large numbers of Smurfs dead and injured and their leader Papa Smurf incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, has been swift and brutal, with Barney the Purple Dinosaur being the latest US casualty. “I regret to say that the video released to the internet which appeared to show Barney being beheaded by his captors, was genuine,” a Defense Department spokesperson announced last night. “I’m sure that all decent people will unite in mourning for this well-loved TV personality, so beloved by our children. But they can all rest assured that he gave his life in the defence of freedom!” Barney was captured by blue-skinned insurgents whilst touring strife-torn Smurfland, entertaining the GI Joes who have been deployed there. “The kidnappers’ demands for an immediate withdrawal of our GI Joes from Smurfland in exchange for Barney were, sadly, completely unacceptable,” explained the spokesperson. “The US and its allies cannot give in to terrorism.” The brutal execution of Barney comes only a week after the red Power Ranger was shot down by Smurf terrorists using a Surface to Air Missile, and is simply the latest in a series of atrocities perpetrated by Smurf terrorists against the occupation forces. Prior to the snatching of the dinosaur, the GI Joe forces had taken the brunt of Smurf attacks, with several patrols being ambushed. “Those giant mushrooms offer them the perfect cover,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield explained to a recent press conference. “One of the little blue bastards hides behind one of those thick stalks with his rocket launcher and takes out the lead vehicle of the patrol, then the rest of them leap off of the tops of the other mushrooms and massacre our boys!” Consequently, Rumsfield has ordered the immediate harvesting of the thick Mushroom fields of Southern Smurfland in an attempt to foil the insurgents.

However, the Smurf resistance hasn’t confined its campaign to occupied Smurfland, with attacks on GI Joes being reported in the US itself. “It was terrible,” says eleven year old Timmy Cracowicz, who witnessed one of the attacks in the back garden of his Newark home. “One minute my four GI Joes were patrolling the along the back fence in their Humvee, looking out for crazy Arabs to shoot, the next there was this was this huge bang as they ran over a landmine and were blown up!” Timmy looked on in horror as a group of Smurfs, clad in camouflage battledress and armed with automatic weapons and machetes, rushed out from behind a rhododendron and machine gunned the smouldering wreckage. “They were laughing and cheering in those shrill little voices all the while,” he relates, close to tears. “Not satisfied with just killing the GI Joes, they spat on their bodies, shouting ‘Death to America’, before beheading them and taking the heads as trophies!” Little Timmy remains severely traumatised and refuses to play outside any more, instead spending all day inside watching television. However, even this activity isn’t entirely without risk. “The sight of any thing blue terrifies him now,” confides his mother. “When Bear in the Big Blue House came on the other day he had a massive panic attack and hid under his bed, screaming his lungs out for two hours!”

Reprisals by US citizens against Smurf immigrants has been swift and terrible, with thousands of the blue midgets being rooted out of toy boxes and cupboards and burned on bonfires, particularly after unconfirmed press reports of terrible atrocities being committed against Barbie dolls in South Carolina. “We welcomed these little blue guys into our country by the thousand back in the 1970s and 1980s – we took them to our hearts and trusted them with our kids,” declared Atlanta city councillor and part-time rabble rouser Kirk Dallins at a recent public Smurf-burning event. “How do they repay our hospitality? By defiling some our most potent childhood icons! American children will be traumatised for generations by what they’ve seen done to Barney and GI Joe!”

However, the Smurf insurgents do have some sympathisers in the US, who refuse to condemn their actions. “As far as I can see, they’ve done us all a favour by killing that damned dinosaur,” opines Maryland mother of three Marsha Ellington. “He used to drive me crazy with his inane and repetitive singing! I’m sure that seeing him on TV everyday must have been severely warping our children’s mental development! As for those warmongering GI Joes – they deserve everything they get! All they do is encourage violence and aggressive militaristic attitudes in kids!” Ellington is one of a growing number of Americans who oppose the occupation of Smurfland and are openly questioning the government’s reasons for going to war with the little people. “Those ‘Mushrooms of Mass Destruction’ they claimed were such a threat have failed to materialise,” she points out. “All they’ve found there are regular giant fungi – certainly nothing which could be germinated within thirty-six hours and fire its spores at New York!” Indeed, many now suspect that the real reason for the invasion was oil. “The Smurfs are well known for their close connections with National Benezole and British Petroleum,” explains Ellington. “Apparently they were instrumental in pushing up crude oil prices – face with the threat of gas shortages and higher prices at the pumps in the US, the President invaded Smurfland!”

Such arguments are dismissed out of hand by supporters of the war, who maintain that the giant mushrooms posed a genuine threat to US security. “Everybody knows that they were planning to contaminate our water supplies with those magic mushrooms,” asserts Kirk Dallins. “The hallucinogens from that fungi would have turned us into a nation of hippie perverts, tearing each others clothes off and cavorting naked whilst preaching peace and love! The country would have been left defenceless and ripe for conquest!” There have also been allegations that the Smurfs were undermining the moral values of America’s children by promoting unnatural sexual relationships. “One girl Smurf and God knows how many guys – led by some kind of old pervert? What the hell kind of message is that sending to our kids?” Dallins demands to know. “The fact that new Smurfs are created without any kind of normal sexual liaison between couples in a loving marriage is obviously some kind of endorsement for masturbation!” Apologists for Papa Smurf – found hiding in a forest grotto by GI Joe infantry three weeks after the end of hostilities- and his regime claim that their misdemeanours were the result of the malicious influence of their ‘spiritual leader’ Father Abraham, who used the Smurfs as a vehicle for his twisted anti-western terror campaign. “They were all perfectly innocent until that bearded weirdo came along,” opines Ellington. “He’s waged a campaign of terror against the west – starting with those incredibly irritating records!”

Father Abraham – who escaped the US invaders – is apparently co-ordinating the worldwide Smurf resistance from his secret hideout beneath the mountains of Northern Smurfland. According to intelligence sources, he is currently attempting to build up a network of sympathisers amongst other popular children’s characters. Indeed, British police have already moved to detain Wallace and Gromit, after intelligence reports that the inventor had been seeking supplies of radioactive cheese. “Our worry is that he’ll use his moon rocket as a delivery system for nuclear terror attacks,” explained a Home Office spokesperson. In separate development, it has emerged that Wallace is also under investigation by the RSPCA for alleged cruelty to animals.