Your country needs you (to dress up as Taliban)

Germany's defence minister, Peter Struck, may have produced the answer to the problem that has eluded his beleaguered chancellor, Gerhard Schröder - how to reduce Germany's teaming army of unemployed. Get them all to dress up and pretend to be the Taliban.

Mr Struck made his unorthodox proposal after touring a military barracks in Vorpommern in eastern Germany, which prepares the German army for peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan and the Balkans.

After watching a training exercise in which German soldiers frisked suspects at a checkpoint, the minister was horrified to discover that the "suspects" were highly paid professional soldiers.

It would be much cheaper, he said, if some of Germany's 5 million unemployed could be persuaded to play the enemy instead. With 30% unemployment in Vorpommern, it should be simple to find 400 jobless Germans for battle exercises who could play excitable Serbian crowds or Taliban sympathisers, he added.

Yesterday a spokesman for the defence ministry said Mr Struck's proposal, made during a visit to the 14th Tank Division in the town of Torgelow, was serious, but details had not been worked out yet.

The suggestion came a day after Mr Schröder attempted to regain the political initiative by announcing a 3% tax on the rich ahead of September's general election, which he is widely expected to lose.