Rushdie in 'Satanic Limericks' outrage

Controversial author Salman Rushie today faces the threat of renewed fatwah, as well as jihad, excommunication, air strike and legal action on five continents after his new children's book The Satanic Limericks managed to offend every major world religion.

Rushie, who is no stranger to enraged true believers coming at him with knives, is reported to have hoped that his "fun look at the modern world" would appeal to teenagers and adults alike, simultaneously "amusing and educating". Sadly, his hopes have been dashed amid scenes of international outrage.

In Rome, Vatican officials are even now "preparing an enormous Papal Bull of Excommunication" in response to this verse:

There was an old man called the Pope
Whose sex life was one without hope
Though continually urgin'
To come in a virgin
All he got was a snog and a grope

The threatened Bull comes despite the fact that Rushie is not even a Catholic. "Don't you worry about that," one purple-faced Cardinal told The Rockall Times. "We're going to club the bastard to death with it."

Likewise, Buddhist monks have begun to flood into London with a view to self-immolation on Rushdie's front lawn after the author wrote:

There was a fat bastard called Buddha
Who weighed thirty stone though he coulda
Laid off of the lard
And ale by the yard
Like a proper divine being shoulda

Naturally, the Arab world does not escape Rushdie's attention. Hamas has placed him on their "ten most likely to get a visit from a teenage suicide bomber" list as a reaction to his witty analysis of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's current predicament:

There was an old rag-head called Yasser
Who picked up the phone for a natter
But no-one would chat
With this terrorist prat
About Israel or any other matter

Warming to his task, Rushdie goes on to make merry at the expense of the Americans:

There was a black Yankee called Powell
Whose name bore a very strange vowel
His reading of 'Colin'
Had Englishmen howling
And calling a linguistic foul

It is, however, the following which is likely to land the author in the hottest water. Ignoring the current fashion for anti-Iraq warmongering, Rushdie seems to suggest that Saddam Hussein, although completely bonkers, is nothing less than a US-created Frankenstein's monster. Holocaust victims are upset about this one too:

There was a dictator called Saddam
Who didn't like Kurds so he had 'em
Gassed like the Jews
In nineteen-forty-two
Like a proper US-funded madman

US reaction to this dig has been predictable. "We ain't gonna stand for no towel-head pen-pusher knocking the good old US of A," fumed a visibly-rattled Ronald Dumsfeld. "We'll back any fatwah which seeks to remove this guy permanently from the international literary scene. There will be no hiding place."

Meanwhile, London police chiefs have been running around like headless chickens for three days trying to work out how their overstretched officers will be able to protect Rushdie from the hundreds of maniacal zealots expected to have a poke in the next few months. "This will cost the taxpayers millions," sobbed one Met accountant. "Why can't he just keep his mouth shut, for the love of all that's holy?"