GERMAN towns and cities are being invaded by a marauding army of raccoons who are setting up home in people's houses and attacking their pets.

The mass invasion became evident after concentrations of raccoons in Germany's countryside reached saturation level and they began to head for urban areas. Residents of Hamburg, Berlin and Frankfurt are demanding professional assistance to rid themselves of the non-indigenous pest.

Unafraid of humans and possessing the guile to turn door handles and enter cat flaps, the black-masked interlopers scavenge for pet food in kitchens, strip cupboards bare, rummage through dustbins and mark furniture with their faeces.

Although native to the new world, raccoons have been quietly proliferating in Germany since the second world war, when 100 mating pairs escaped after a stray bomb hit a pelt farm on the outskirts of Berlin.

Researchers claim they have already spread as far as Spain in the west, Belarus in the east and Switzerland in the south. "So far they haven't managed to cross the Alps into Italy, but that is probably just a matter of time," said Hohmann.

Israeli soldiers and civilians were at the station outside the heavily guarded Ariel settlement when a woman started shouting, "Suicide terrorist, suicide terrorist," said Yitzhak Zahavi, a reserve soldier who was slightly wounded.

Several soldiers told the man to stop and the attacker raised his hands, Zahavi told Israel Radio.

"He stopped and even started walking backwards," Zahavi said. "Then they tried to grab him to disarm him. When they saw that he had explosives on his body ... they shot him twice," which apparently set off the bomb.