Oblivious and unaware, U.S. troops have been aiding an invasion of hundreds of disease-infested cockroaches by letting the insects hitchhike their way into USA.

An army of Turkistan cockroaches have embarrassed the U.S. military by hitchhiking their way to the States with troops and equipment returning from the war zones of Asia and the Middle East.    

These particularly dangerous cockroaches, which are often ridden with potentially harmful diseases are now sweeping their way across the U.S. and have spread from California to New Mexico in search of new territory, where they can inflict further malady and mayhem. These cockroaches commonly live in warm and relatively humid environments, preferably near food and water and they often breed in sewer systems. They can be dangerous to human beings as they seek out food and can contaminate it with harmful bacteria. The Turkistan cockroach is known to carry serious diseases such as dysentery and typhoid. 
 
The incursion of these insects is believed to have started when a handful of them accompanied U.S. soldiers returning home from the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. Now, U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are repeating the mistakes of their predecessors and are bringing back harmful cockroaches from their native countries to the U.S.

According to experts, the Turkistan cockroach’s native soil is to be found in countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, and their natural habitats are deserts. This explains the large quantity of pesticides being spread on desert areas in California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexic, where there are currently believed to be masses of the fast-breeding cockroaches.

Philip Koehler, a professor of Entomology at the University of Florida says,

“The Turkistan cockroaches breed quickly at room temperature and they like to live around the outside of houses, but also to invade them”.

But the Turkistan species is not the U.S.’s only cockroach concern. With the U.S. military busy at war, a battle of bugs is breaking out at home with as many as 29 new species of cockroaches having been recently imported to America from other countries and are causing a conflict of their own. Whilst the Turkistan cockroach is one of the only species that carries harmful diseases, the fact that 29 new species have been imported, such as the Madagascar hissing roach and the orange-spotted roach, is allowing large numbers to multiple and spread and is consequently causing a disturbance to American citizens with their contamination of food and secretion of bad odours. These globe-trotting pests have definitely arrived uninvited.
 
Gabrielle Pickard for RT

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