It reads like the script of a Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster, but this tale of humans waging war on mutant rodents is in fact for real.
Tehran is using snipers to fight a rise of super-evolved 'mutant rats', which officials say have grown excessively large after being exposed to radiation and chemicals.
The rats now outnumber humans in the Iranian capital, which has a population of over 12 million people.
A local official and university professor has remarked on the exceptional physical changes in the rats, commenting than this type of evolution would normally take 'millions of years'.
Whilst the rat problem is nothing new in Tehran, traditional poisons have lost their effectiveness and the city has decided on new, drastic measures to win the fight against these oversized pests.
It has started sending out specially-trained marksmen to shoot the rodents at night.
'It has become a 24/7 war,' the head of the environment agency, Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh reportedly told Qudsonline.ir.
'We use chemical poisons to kill the rats during the day and the snipers at night.'
