diff --git a/lib/ansible/playbook/play.py b/lib/ansible/playbook/play.py
index 8646bcd8b1e..dcb67bdc0de 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/playbook/play.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/playbook/play.py
@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ class Play(object):
                 task_vars['_original_file'] = original_file
 
             if 'include' in x:
-                tokens = shlex.split(x['include'])
+                tokens = shlex.split(str(x['include']))
                 items = ['']
                 included_additional_conditions = list(additional_conditions)
                 for k in x:
diff --git a/test/TestPlayBook.py b/test/TestPlayBook.py
index 0445158b167..e2dfcd8634c 100644
--- a/test/TestPlayBook.py
+++ b/test/TestPlayBook.py
@@ -211,6 +211,27 @@ class TestPlaybook(unittest.TestCase):
 
        assert utils.jsonify(expected, format=True) == utils.jsonify(actual,format=True)
 
+   def test_task_includes(self):
+       pb = os.path.join(self.test_dir, 'task-includer.yml')
+       actual = self._run(pb)
+
+       # if different, this will output to screen
+       print "**ACTUAL**"
+       print utils.jsonify(actual, format=True)
+       expected =  {
+           "localhost": {
+               "changed": 0,
+               "failures": 0,
+               "ok": 1,
+               "skipped": 0,
+               "unreachable": 0
+           }
+       }
+       print "**EXPECTED**"
+       print utils.jsonify(expected, format=True)
+
+       assert utils.jsonify(expected, format=True) == utils.jsonify(actual,format=True)
+
    def test_playbook_vars(self):
        test_callbacks = TestCallbacks()
        playbook = ansible.playbook.PlayBook(
diff --git a/test/task-included.yml b/test/task-included.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..0c68a120741
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/task-included.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+---
+- action: debug msg="$internal"
diff --git a/test/task-includer.yml b/test/task-includer.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..b728827f72b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/task-includer.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+- hosts: all
+  connection: local
+  gather_facts: no
+  vars:
+  - internal: xyz
+
+  tasks:
+  - include: task-included.yml internal=$internal