Zardari mistakes Osama for Obama

In a sensational revelation, a Central Asian news agency has claimed that it has irrefutable evidence to prove that Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari may have been taking orders from Osama and not Obama as is widely believed. "That may partly explain", says South-Asia correspondent Floral Poi, "why Zardari has been making contradictory statements on a host of issues ranging from Mumbai terror attack to reinstatement of sacked Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhary to his equation with Prime Minister Gilani".

Political analysts say that this won't be the first time Zardari has been victim to an evil prankster. He had earlier claimed that after the Mumbai attack, someone claiming to be Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee had called him threatening to attack Pakistan. An inexperienced Zardari panicked and went into denial mode which has now resulted in one of the biggest diplomatic stand-offs between the two countries.

Sources indicate that owing to the close similarity between the names of the Saudi fugitive and the American President, the former has been sending Zardari instructions on various policies. It is not clear if the Al Qaeda leader deliberately misled Pakistani establishment or the latter misunderstood the message as having originated from the Oval Office. It is a mistake that everyone, from CNN to Ted Kennedy, have done. The names Obama and Osama have been used interchangeably (but erroneously) quite a few times, but this is the first time that a nation's policies have been influenced by it.

A Zardari aide said,"the media is blowing it out of proportion, yes he was always weak at spelling, but these sorts of mistakes are not unheard of! Remember just a few years back George W. Bush plunged his nation into the Iraq War after claiming to have heard God's voice?" And didn't it turn out that the voice did not belong to God but to Dick Cheney who was over the intercom? So why is it difficult for Zardari to make a similar mistake by confusing Osama with Obama ?" the official emphatically questions.

However, a large number of political and security experts argue that it might not be as inadvertent a mistake as it is now made out to be. A security expert on condition of anonymity says,"radical militant groups have always had a say in the governance, the instructions from Al Qaeda or Taliban to the President might not be such a rarity, maybe Zardari just didn't know how to handle it. Afterall he is not known to be particularly bright. Pakistan has been running with hares and hunting with hounds all along, this shouldn't surprise anyone."

Osama Bin Laden could not be reached for comment.

Update:
I guess everybody has taken it as it should have been - An April Fool Joke :D
There were 2 clues -

• Floral Poi - is an anagram of April Fool.
• Individual letters in bold starting with "A" spell April Fool.