Suicide bombers.

First it was Postmen striking, Then British Airways cabin crew
Now this lot want to get in on the act

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike
on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to
in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far
failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number
of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut
by 25% this January from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was
the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a
subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational
Martyrs (B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was
unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike
action.
General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are
literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't
ask for much in return but to be treated like this by management is a
kick in the teeth."

Mr. Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins but pointed out
that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce
and not by management. "Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an
annual bonus of 250,000 virgins," complains Amir. "And you can be sure
they'll all be pretty ones too. How can Al Qaeda afford that for
members of the management but not 72 for the people who do the real
work?"

Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands in which he currently
resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained, "We
sympathize with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a
position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the
realities of modern-day Jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to
Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the
afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and
laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to
tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up."
He defended management bonuses by claiming these were necessary to
attract good, fanatical clerics. "How am I supposed to attract the
best people if I can't compete with the private sector?" asked Mr.
Bin-Laden.

Talks broke down this morning after management's final proposal of a
virgin-sharing scheme was rejected outright after a failure to agree
on orifice allocation quotas. One virgin, who refused to be named, was
quoted as saying "I'll be buggered if I'm agreeing to anything like
that . . . it's too much to swallow".

Unless some sort of agreement is reached over the weekend, suicide
bombers will down explosives at midday on Monday. Most branches are
supporting the strike. Only the North London branch, which has a
different union, is likely to continue working. However, some members
of that branch will only be using waist-down explosives in order to
express solidarity with their striking brethren.

Spokespersons in the North East of England, Swindon, North Kent, Essex
and the entire Australian continent stated that this would not affect
their operations, as "There are no virgins in their areas anyway".