Kashmiri Website Falls For Satire Claiming CIA Issued Posthumous Apology To Osama Bin Laden

Kashmir Pen, a weekly newspaper operating from Srinagar, republished a fictional article by US satire website The Onion about the CIA issuing a posthumous apology to slain terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

The article, which has been reproduced from theonion.com, goes on to mention how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had erroneously rushed to conclude that Osama Bin Laden, founder of the global terrorist organization al-Qaeda, was the mastermind of 9/11 attacks.

Kashmir Pen carried the story verbatim on January 24, 2019. View an archived version of it here. It posted the same to its Facebook page (see the post below)

Kashmir Pen carried the story under the category 'International' on its website. It even states the source of the article as The Onion.

The Onion's piece also includes fictional and made up quotes of CIA director
Gina Haspel rendering an emotional apology to Bin Laden's family
after new evidence conclusively cleared the former Al Qaeda leader of any involvement whatsoever. It further states the CIA has offered to his family $18 million as restitution for his death.

The satire story also claimed the CIA was now operating under the assumption that Zacarias Moussaoui acted alone in perpetrating the events of 9/11.

What is The Onion?

The Onion is a satire website that specialises in satirical or parody articles on international, national and local news, apart from fictional rip offs of news items. The publication has its headquarters in Chicago.

None of its articles are real and should be treated as a work of fiction.

Sample the below paragraph describing itself in the website's About Us section.

"The Onion supports more than 350,000 full- and part-time journalism jobs in its numerous news bureaus and manual labor camps stationed around the world, and members of its editorial board have served with distinction in an advisory capacity for such nations as China, Syria, Somalia, and the former Soviet Union. "

You can read more about The Onion here.