There are a number of airports, to my knowledge mostly in east Asia and around the Indian subcontinent, that try to ban batteries with varying degrees of strictness and consistency. There have been stories posted on FT, but they are hard to find without search working. In some cases loose batteries were taken, in others even the batteries in devices, in others expensive lithium-ion laptop batteries.

At ICN there are pictograms of "no batteries" similar to the "no guns" pictogram you might see in the USA. Going through ICN one day both I and a coworker were asked if we had any batteries in our carry-on. He said yes and lost a bunch of AAs. I said no in an unclear roundabout way, (which was untrue; I had many), and didn't lose anything.

Of course AAs were avialable for sale at airside shops.

Security stupidity is in no way limited to the USA.